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A  WORLD    IN    FERMENT 

INTERPRETATIONS  OP   THE  WAR 
FOR  A   NEW   WORLD 


A  WORLD  IN  FERMENT 

INTERPRETATIONS  OF  THE  WAR 
FOR  A  NEW  WORLD 


BY 

NICHOLAS    MURRAY    BUTLER 

PRESIDENT  OF  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 
IIEUBER  OF  THE  AUERICAN  ACADEUTV  OF  ARTS  AND  LETTERS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1918 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  August,  1917 


Copyright,  1914,  1915,  by  THE  NEW  YORK  TIMES  CO. 


TO  THOSE  MEN  AND  WOMEN  OF  WHATEVER 
LAND  WHO  PRIZE  INDIVIDUAL  LIBERTY,  WHO 
DISTINGUISH  TRUE  DEMOCRACY  FROM  FALSE, 
AND  WHO  WISH  TO  LIVE  IN  A  WORLD  WHICH  IS 
AT  PEACE  BECAUSE  IT  IS  BOTH  FREE  AND  JUST 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I    Introduction i 

II  The  Onrush  of  War  .......  ii 

III  The  United  States  of  Europe   .   .  25 

IV  The    United    States    as   a   World 

Power 47 

V    Patriotism (fj 

VI    The  Changed  Outlook 85 

VII    Higher  Preparedness loi 

VIII  The  Building  of  the  Nation.    .   .  115 

IX    Nationality  and  Beyond 131 

X    The  Present  Crisis 143 

XI    Is  America  Drifting? 151 

XII    Looking  Forward 171 

XIII    The  Russian  Revolution 205 

vii 


\ 

\ 

t 

i 


viu  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XIV    The  Call  to  Service 219 

XV    The  Envoys  at  the  University  .  .  227 

XVI    The  International  Mind:    How  to 

Develop  It 233 

XVII    A  World  in  Ferment 243 

Index 251 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

Since  August  i,  1914,  no  American  has  been 
quite  free  to  speak  in  public  on  the  issues  and 
the  consequences  of  the  war  without  bearing 
constantly  in  mind  the  attitude  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States.  That  attitude, 
which  began  as  neutrality  and  which  on  April 
6,  1917  passed  over  into  participation  in  the 
conflict,  has  in  its  various  stages  of  develop- 
ment probably  marked  with  substantial  cor- 
rectness the  state  of  American  public  opinion 
in  relation  to  the  war.  When  one  looks  back, 
however,  from  participation  to  neutrality,  he 
cannot  help  seeing  how  imperfectly,  even  from 
the  very  beginning,  neutrality  reflected  the 
actual  relations  of  the  war  to  the  present  and 
the  future  of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
Nevertheless,  it  takes  time  and  events  of  a 
compelling  character  to  aff'ect  the  controlling 
opinion  of  a  nation  of  more  than  one  hundred 
millions  whose  traditions  are  of  detachment 
from  world  politics  in  general  and  from  Euro- 
pean controversies  in  particular.  It  seems 
quite    certain    that    the    future    historian    will 

3 


4  INTRODUCTION 

dwell  with  more  emphasis  upon  the  complete 
transformation  which  the  war  has  effected  in 
the  feelings  and  policies  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  than  upon  the  fact  that  it  took 
nearly  three  years  to  effect  that  transformation. 
It  may  well  be  that  the  war  would  have  been 
differently  conducted  and  more  quickly  ended 
had  the  Government  of  the  United  States  an- 
nounced immediately  on  the  first  declaration 
of  war  that,  as  a  co-signatory  of  the  Hague 
Conventions,  it  would  deem  it  a  duty  to  pro- 
test against  the  violation  by  any  belligerent 
of  the  Hague  Conventions,  of  the  laws  and  cus- 
toms of  civilized  warfare,  or  of  the  rules  of 
international  law.  Such  a  declaration  would 
not  have  prevented  the  invasion  of  Belgium; 
that  had  been  planned  too  long  and  was  too 
essential  a  part  of  the  contemplated  attack  to 
be  so  easily  checked.  But  it  might  well  have 
prevented  some  of  the  shocking  outrages  that 
followed  in  Belgium,  in  northern  France,  in 
Poland,  in  Serbia,  and  in  Roumania,  as  well  as 
have  held  in  leash  the  dogs  of  submarine  war- 
fare. Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  such  a 
declaration  would  have  marked  an  epoch  in 
the  history  of  nations,  for  it  would  have  pointed 


INTRODUCTION  5 

with  the  utmost  energy  and  directness  to  law 
at  a  time  when  resort  to  force  was  being  had 
on  a  scale  hitherto  unheard  of  in  history. 

As  the  war  has  proceeded,  it  has  become  so 
plain  that  even  he  who  runs  may  read,  that  it 
is  essentially  a  war  for  a  new  world.  It  is  a 
war  for  a  new  international  world,  and  a  war 
for  a  new  intranational  world. 

It  requires  no  great  gift  of  prophecy  to  fore- 
see that  the  new  international  world  that  will 
almost  certainly  arise  upon  the  ruins  of  this  war 
will  be  one  in  which  the  nations  of  the  earth 
will  band  themselves  together  more  closely  than 
ever  before,  not  to  enforce  peace  but  to  se- 
cure peace.  The  dreams  of  seers  and  the  long- 
cherished  projects  of  statesmen  are  likely  soon 
to  be  fulfilled  in  many  of  their  essential  parts. 
This  appears  to  be  a  safe  prediction,  for  the 
reason  that  there  seems  to  be  no  other  way  in 
which  human  foresight  and  human  capacity 
can  make  highly  improbable  the  recurrence  of 
any  such  holocaust  as  is  now  consuming  civili- 
zation. Some  suggestions  as  to  ways  and  means 
by  which  this  new  international  world  may  be 
achieved  and  established  are  offered  in  the 
pages  that  follow. 


6  INTRODUCTION 

The  war  is  also  a  war  for  a  new  intranational 
world.  The  political  developments  in  Great 
Britain,  in  France,  and  in  the  United  States, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  stupendous  revolution  in 
Russia,  indicate  the  character  of  this  new  world. 
It  will  be  a  world  in  which  democracy  will  be 
more  secure,  more  effective,  more  just  and 
better  established.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  it 
will  be  a  world  in  which  there  will  be  a  larger 
measure  of  co-operation  between  government 
and  private  enterprise  than  has  heretofore  been 
usual,  but  in  which  government  will  not  stifle 
and  suppress  private  enterprise  with  its  clumsy 
and  costly  hand.  It  will  not  be  a  world  from 
which  vagaries  and  vice  can  be  excluded,  be- 
cause vagaries  and  vice  accompany  humanity 
on  its  progress;  but  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  it  will  be  a  world  purified  and 
strengthened  by  the  tremendous  trials  to  which 
the  world  of  to-day  is  being  subjected. 

The  new  world  will  be  one  in  which  inter- 
national policies  will  play  a  greatly  increased 
part.  Perhaps  the  greatest  enemy  of  true  inter- 
nationalism is  false  internationalism.  Move- 
ments to  advance  international  interdependence 
and    international   understanding   are   of  two 


INTRODUCTION  7 

distinct  kinds.  One  of  these  is  both  mislead- 
ing and  harmful,  and  by  its  methods  and  proc- 
esses would  make  the  achievement  of  its  de- 
clared aim  quite  impossible.  The  other  is  wise 
and  statesmanlike,  and  follows  the  path  by 
which  such  progress  as  has  already  been  made 
has  been  achieved.  Of  these  two  methods  of 
promoting  what  may  be  called  internationalism 
the  former  would  proceed  by  denouncing  all 
nationahstic  and  patriotic  feeling  whatsoever 
in  order  to  exalt  the  supernational  brotherhood 
of  man,  and  to  lay  stress  upon  a  world-wide 
community  without  national  ties  or  national 
ambitions.  To  use  a  figure  drawn  from  chem- 
istry, this  might  be  called  colloidal  internation- 
alism. It  is  hopelessly  impractical  as  an  ideal, 
and  hopelessly  unsound  and  unstable  as  a 
public  policy,  whether  for  individuals  or  for 
nations.  The  second  method  of  promoting 
internationalism  would  strengthen  and  develop 
nationalistic  and  patriotic  sentiments  and  aims, 
in  order  that  when  so  strengthened  they  may 
be  used  without  impairment  or  weakening  as 
elements  in  a  larger  human  undertaking  of 
which  each  nation  should  be  an  independent 
and  integral  part.     Pursuing  the  same  figure, 


8  INTRODUCTION 

this  might  be  called  crystalline  international- 
ism. The  strength  and  beauty  of  the  whole 
international  structure  when  complete  would 
then  depend  upon  and  reflect  the  strength  and 
beauty  of  each  of  its  national  elements.  The 
colloidal  internationalism  of  the  type  of  per- 
son who  insists  that  he  knows  no  country  but 
humanity,  and  that  he  is  a  citizen  of  no  state 
but  only  of  the  world,  is  hopeless  nonsense.  It 
prevents  the  development  of  true  internation- 
alism by  affronting  common  sense. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  new  world  will  also 
come  to  an  understanding  with  itself  about 
peace.  It  will  perhaps  understand,  what  some 
excellent  persons  are  not  now  able  to  see,  that 
peace  is  not  an  ideal  at  all;  it  is  a  state  atten- 
dant upon  the  achievement  of  an  ideal.  The 
ideal  itself  is  human  liberty,  justice,  and  the 
honorable  conduct  of  an  orderly  and  humane 
society.  Given  this,  a  durable  peace  follows 
naturally  as  a  matter  of  course.  Without  this, 
there  is  no  peace,  but  only  a  rule  of  force  until 
liberty  and  justice  revolt  against  it  in  search 
of  peace.  It  is  Tacitus  who  records  the  British 
chieftain  Calgacus  as  saying  of  the  invading 
Romans  of  his  day,  Solitudinem  faciunt,  pacem 


INTRODUCTION  9 

appellant.  If  Imperium  be  read  for  Solitudi- 
neniy  this  pregnant  sentence  is  a  true  description 
of  the  poHtical  philosophy  and  the  mihtary 
policy  of  the  twentieth  century  Teutons. 

To  regard  peace  as  an  end  in  itself  and  as 
something  to  be  achieved  at  all  hazards,  is  in 
effect  to  labor  for  the  indefinite  continuance 
of  war.  The  new  world  of  which  we  are  in 
search  will  insist  upon  justice,  liberty,  and 
righteousness,  as  its  foundation,  and  it  will 
welcome  durable  peace  as  their  accustomed 
companion  and  friend. 

Nicholas  Murray  Butler. 

Columbia  University 

In  the  City  of  New  York 

July  14,  1917 


II 

THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR 


An  Address  at  the  Opening  of  the  i6ist  Academic  Year 
of  Columbia  University,  September  23,  1914 


THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR 

Our  usual  interests  however  great,  our  usual 
problems  however  pressing,  all  seem  petty  and 
insignificant  in  view  of  what  has  befallen  the 
world  while  we  were  seeking  rest  and  refresh- 
ment in  the  summer  holiday.  The  murky 
clouds  of  cruel,  relentless  war,  lit  by  the  light- 
ning flash  of  great  guns  and  made  more  terrible 
by  the  thunderous  booming  of  cannon,  hang 
over  the  European  countries  that  we  know  and 
love  so  well.  The  great  scholars  that  we  would 
have  so  gladly  welcomed  here,  have  not  come 
to  us.  They  are  killing  and  being  killed  across 
the  sea.  Friends  and  colleagues  whom  we 
honor  are  filled  with  hate  toward  each  other, 
and  toward  each  other's  countrymen.  The 
words  that  oftenest  come  to  our  lips,  the  ideals 
that  we  cherish  and  pursue,  the  progress  that 
we  fancied  we  were  making,  seem  not  to  exist. 
Mankind  is  back  in  the  primeval  forest,  with 
the  elemental  brute  passions  finding  a  truly 
fiendish  expression.  The  only  apparent  use  of 
science  is  to  enable  men  to  kill  other  men  more 

13 


14  THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR 

quickly  and  in  greater  numbers.  The  only 
apparent  service  of  philosophy  is  to  make  the 
worse  appear  the  better  reason.  The  only  ap- 
parent evidence  of  the  existence  of  religion  is 
the  fact  that  divergent  and  impious  appeals  to 
a  palpably  pagan  God,  have  led  him,  in  per- 
plexed distress,  to  turn  over  the  affairs  of 
Europe  to  an  active  and  singularly  accom- 
plished devil. 

What  are  we  to  think  ?  Is  science  a  sham  ? 
Is  philosophy  a  pretense .?  Is  religion  a  mere 
rumor  ?  Is  the  great  international  structure  of 
friendship,  good  will,  and  scholarly  co-operation 
upon  which  this  University  and  many  of  its 
members  have  worked  so  long,  so  faithfully, 
and  apparently  with  so  much  success,  only  an 
illusion  ?  Are  the  long  and  devoted  labors  of 
scholars  and  of  statesmen  to  enthrone  Justice 
in  the  place  of  Brute  Force  in  the  world,  all 
without  effect  ?    Are  Lowell's  lines  true — 

"  Right  forever  on  the  scaffold. 
Wrong  forever  on  the  throne"? 

The  answer  is  No;  a  thousand  times.  No ! 

Despite  all  appearances,  even  in  this  wicked 
and    unprovoked    assault   on   the   liberties   of 


THE  ONRUSH  OP  WAR  15 

peace-loving  men  and  nations  which  is  decimat- 
ing the  flower  of  European  manhood,  multiply- 
ing by  the  million  the  widows,  the  orphans,  the 
suffering,  and  the  distressed,  wrecking  the  com- 
mercial and  industrial  progress  of  a  century, 
impoverishing  alike  the  belligerents  and  the 
neutrals,  closing  the  exchanges  from  New  York 
to  Buenos  Aires,  ruining  the  cotton-planter  of 
the  South  as  well  as  the  copper-miner  of  the 
Far  West,  loosing  in  the  frenzied  combatants 
the  primitive  instincts  of  savagery  and  lust — 
even  here  there  is  to  be  found  something  on 
which  this  University  may  continue  to  build 
the  temple  of  wisdom,  of  justice,  and  of  true 
civilization  to  which  its  hand  was  laid  when 
George  II  was  king,  when  Louis  XV  still  reigned 
in  France,  and  when  Frederick  the  Great  was 
at  the  height  of  his  fame  in  Prussia. 

We  are  a  neutral  nation,  and  the  President 
has  enjoined  us  all  to  observe  neutrality  in 
speech  and  in  deed;  but  neutrality  is  not  indif- 
ference. Ours  is  not  the  neutrality  of  the 
casual  passer-by  who  views  with  amused  care- 
lessness a  fight  between  two  street  rowdies;  it  is 
the  neutrality  of  the  just  judge  who  aims,  with- 
out passion  and  without  prejudice,  to  render 


i6  TBE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR 

judgment  on  the  proved  facts.  We  cannot  if 
we  would  refrain  from  passing  judgment  upon 
the  conduct  of  men,  whether  singly  or  in  na- 
tions, and  we  should  not  attempt  to  do  so. 

In  the  first  place,  the  moral  judgment  of  the 
American  people  as  to  the  aggressors  in  this 
war  and  as  to  the  several  steps  in  the  declara- 
tion and  conduct  of  it,  is  clear,  calm,  and  prac- 
tically unanimous.  There  is  no  beating  of 
drums  and  blowing  of  bugles,  but  rather  a  sad 
pain  and  grief  that  our  kin  across  the  sea,  owing 
whatever  allegiance  and  speaking  whatever 
tongue,  have  been  led  to  engage  in  public  mur- 
der and  destruction  on  the  most  stupendous 
scale  recorded  in  history.  This  of  itself  proves 
that  the  education  of  public  opinion  has  pro- 
ceeded far,  and,  whatever  he  who  extols  war 
for  its  own  sake  may  say,  it  shows  that  the 
heart  of  the  American  people  is  sound  and  its 
head  well-informed.  The  attitude  of  the 
American  press  is  worthy  of  the  highest  praise; 
in  some  notable  instances  the  very  high-water 
mark  of  dignity  and  of  power  has  been  reached. 
When  the  war-clouds  have  lifted,  I  believe 
that  the  moral  judgment  of  the  American  peo- 
ple as  to  the   responsibility  for  this  war  will 


THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR  17 

prove  to  be  that  of  the  sober-minded  and  fair- 
minded  men  in  every  country  of  Europe. 

Next,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  war 
was  made  primarily  by  kings  and  by  cabinets; 
it  was  not  decreed  by  peoples.  We  can  all  tes- 
tify that  the  statement  that  kings  and  cabinets 
were  forced  into  the  war  by  public  sentiment  is 
absolutely  untrue  so  far  at  least  as  several  of 
the  belHgerent  nations  are  concerned.  Cer- 
tainly in  not  more  than  two  cases  were  the 
chosen  representatives  of  the  people  consulted 
at  all.  A  tiny  minority  in  each  of  several  coun- 
tries whose  conduct  was  hostile  and  provoked 
hostilities  may  have  desired  war,  but  the  mili- 
tarist spirit  was  singularly  lacking  among  the 
masses  of  the  population  in  Germany,  in  Aus- 
tria-Hungary, and  in  Russia.  There  the  people 
generally  have  simply  accepted  with  grim  resig- 
nation and  reluctant  enthusiasm  the  conflict 
which  in  each  case  they  are  taught  to  believe 
has  been  forced  on  them  by  another's  aggression. 

The  most  significant  statement  that  I  heard 
in  Europe  was  made  to  me  on  the  third  day  of 
August  last  by  a  German-speaking  railway  ser- 
vant, a  grizzled  veteran  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
War.     In  reply  to  my  question  as  to  whether 


i8  THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR 

he  would  have  to  go  to  the  front,  the  old  man 
said:  "No;  I  am  too  old.  I  am  seventy-two. 
But  my  four  boys  went  yesterday,  God  help 
them !  and  I  hate  to  have  them  go.  For, 
sir,"  he  added  in  a  lowered  voice,  "this  is  not 
a  people's  war;  it  is  a  kings'  war,  and  when  it 
is  over  there  may  not  be  so  many  kings." 

Again,  a  final  end  has  now  been  put  to  the 
contention,  always  made  with  more  emphasis 
than  reasonableness,  that  huge  armaments 
are  themselves  an  insurance  against  war  and 
an  aid  in  maintaining  peace.  This  argument 
was  invented  by  those  who  really  believe  in 
war  and  in  armaments  as  ends  in  themselves. 
Sundry  politicians,  many  newspapers,  and  not 
a  few  good  people  who  are  proud  to  have  their 
thinking  done  for  them,  accepted  this  dictum 
as  a  profound  political  truth.  Its  falsity  is 
now  plain  to  every  one.  Guns  and  bullets  and 
armor  are  not  made  to  take  the  place  of  postage 
stamps  and  books  and  laboratories  and  other 
instruments  of  civilization  and  of  peace;  they 
are  made  to  kill  people.  Their  only  other  pos- 
sible use  is  to  excite  terror,  and  terror,  national 
or  international,  is  not  a  safe  foundation  on 
which  to  attempt  to  build  a  civilization. 


THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR  19 

It  seems  pretty  clear  that  when  the  present 
huge  supplies  of  guns  and  ammunition  are  used 
up  in  the  contest  now  going  on,  no  civilized 
people  will  ever  again  permit  its  government  to 
enter  into  a  competitive  armament  race.  The 
time  may  not  be  so  very  far  distant  when  to  be 
the  first  moral  power  in  the  world  will  be  a 
considerably  greater  distinction  than  to  be  the 
first  military  power  or  the  first  naval  power, 
and  when  the  several  nations  will  band  them- 
selves together  to  repress  the  rule  of  force  and 
to  advance  the  rule  of  law.  How  any  one,  not 
a  fit  subject  for  a  madhouse,  can  find  in  the 
awful  events  now  happening  in  Europe  a  rea- 
son for  asking  the  United  States  to  desist 
from  its  attempts  to  promote  a  new  Interna- 
tional order  In  the  world,  Is  to  me  wholly  in- 
conceivable. 

Another  great  gain  Is  to  be  found  In  the  fact 
that  no  one  Is  willing  to  be  responsible  for  this 
war.  Every  combatant  alleges  that  he  Is  on 
the  defensive,  and  summons  his  fellow  country- 
men who  are  scientists  and  philosophers  to  find 
some  way  to  prove  It.  The  old  claim  that  war 
was  a  part  of  the  moral  order,  a  God-given  in- 
strument for  the  spreading  of  enlightenment. 


20  THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR 

and  the  only  real  training-school  for  the  manly 
virtues,  is  just  now  in  a  state  of  eclipse.  Each 
one  of  the  several  belligerent  nations  insists 
that  it — and  its  government — are  devoted 
friends  of  peace,  and  that  it  is  at  war  only  be- 
cause war  was  forced  upon  it  by  the  acts  of 
some  one  else.  As  to  who  that  some  one  else 
is,  it  has  not  yet  been  possible  to  get  a  unani- 
mous agreement.  What  we  do  know  is  that 
no  one  steps  forward  to  claim  credit  for  the 
war  or  to  ask  a  vote  of  thanks  or  a  decoration 
for  having  forced  it  upon  Europe  and  upon  the 
world.  Everybody  concerned  is  ashamed  of  it 
and  apologetic  for  it. 

It  may  well  be,  moreover,  that  the  desper- 
ately practical  and  direct  education  which  this 
war  is  already  affording  will  hasten  very  much 
the  coming  of  the  day  when  the  close  economic 
and  intellectual  interdependence  of  the  nations 
will  assert  itself  more  emphatically  and  more 
successfully  against  national  chauvinism  and 
the  preposterous  tyranny  of  those  who  worship 
at  the  shrine  of  militarism.  The  armed  peace 
which  preceded  this  war  and  led  directly  to  it, 
was  in  some  respects  worse  than  war  itself;  for 
it  had  many  of  the  evils  of  war  without  war's 


THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR  21 

educational  advantages.  We  are  not  likely  to 
return  again  to  that  form  of  wickedness  and 
folly,  unless  perchance  the  continent  of  Europe 
is  able  to  produce  another  generation  of  public 
men  as  self-centred  and  of  as  narrow  a  vision 
as  those  who  have  generally  been  in  control  of 
public  policy  there  for  forty  years  past.  The 
whole  card-house  of  alliances  and  ententes,  to- 
gether with  the  balance  of  power  theory,  has 
come  tumbling  heavily  to  the  ground.  Some- 
thing far  different  and  much  more  rational  will 
arise  in  its  stead.  In  the  Europe  of  to-morrow 
there  will  be  no  place  for  secret  treaties  and 
understandings,  for  huge  systems  of  armed 
camps  and  limitless  navies,  for  wide-spread  in- 
ternational enmity  and  treachery,  for  carefully 
stimulated  race  and  religious  hatred,  or  for  wars 
made  on  the  sole  responsibility  of  monarchs 
and  of  ministers.  Moral,  social,  and  political 
progress  will  refuse  longer  to  pay  the  crushing 
tolls  which  a  conventional  diplomacy  and  an 
unenlightened  statesmanship  have  demanded 
of  them.  It  is  not  the  Slav  or  the  Teuton,  the 
Latin  or  the  Briton,  the  Oriental  or  the  Ameri- 
can, who  is  the  enemy  of  civilization  and  of 
culture.     Militarism,  there  is  the  enemy ! 


22  THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR 

The  first  notable  victim  of  the  Great  War 
was  the  eloquent  and  accomplished  French 
parHamentarian,  M.  Jaures.  He  was  murdered 
by  a  war-crazed  fanatic.  In  the  course  of  a 
long  and  intimate  conversation  with  M.  Jaures 
shortly  before  his  tragic  death,  he  dwelt  much 
on  the  part  that  America  could  play  in  binding 
the  nations  of  Europe  together.  He  spoke  of 
the  success  of  the  policies  that  had  been  worked 
out  here  to  make  the  United  States  and  Ger- 
many and  the  United  States  and  France  better 
known  to  each  other,  and  he  thought  that 
through  the  agency  of  the  United  States  it 
might  eventually  be  practicable  to  draw  Ger- 
many and  France  together  in  real  trust  and 
friendship.  As  we  parted,  his  last  words  to  me 
were:  "Do  not  leave  off  trying.  No  matter 
what  the  difficulties  are,  do  not  leave  off  try- 
ing." To-day  the  words  of  this  great  socialist 
leader  of  men  seem  like  a  voice  from  beyond 
the  grave.  They  are  true.  We  must  not  leave 
off  trying. 

When  exhaustion,  physical  and  economic, 
brings  this  war  to  an  end,  as  I  believe  it  must, 
the  task  of  America  and  Americans  will  be 
heavy  and   responsible.     It  will   be  for  us  to 


THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR  23 

bind  up  the  war's  wounds,  to  soften  the  war's 
animosities,  and  to  lead  the  way  in  the  colossal 
work  of  reconstruction  that  must  follow.  Then 
if  our  heads  are  clear,  our  hearts  strong,  and 
our  aims  unselfish — and  if  our  nation  continues 
to  show  that  it  means  always  to  keep  its  own 
plighted  word — we  may  gain  new  honor  and 
imperishable  fame  for  our  country.  We  may 
yet  live  to  see  our  great  policies  of  peace,  of 
freedom  from  entangling  alliances,  of  a  world 
concert  instead  of  a  continental  balance  of 
power,  of  an  international  judiciary  and  an  in- 
ternational police,  of  international  co-operation 
instead  of  international  suspicion,  generally 
assented  to,  and,  as  a  result,  the  world's  re- 
sources set  free  to  improve  the  lot  of  peoples, 
to  advance  science  and  scholarship,  and  to 
raise  humanity  to  a  level  yet  unheard  of.  Here 
lies  the  path  of  national  glory  for  us,  and  here 
is  the  call  to  action  in  the  near  future. 

It  is  often  darkest  just  before  the  dawn, 
and  the  hope  of  mankind  may  lie  in  a  direc- 
tion other  than  that  Europe  toward  which  we 
are  now  looking  so  anxiously.  Arthur  Hugh 
Clough's  noble  verses  are  an  inspiration  to  us 
at  this  hour; 


24  THE  ONRUSH  OF  WAR 

"  Say  not  the  struggle  naught  availeth, 
The  labour  and  the  wounds  are  vain. 
The  enemy  faints  not,  nor  faileth. 

And  as  things  have  been  they  remain. 


For  while  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking, 
Seem  here  no  painful  inch  to  gain, 

Far  back,  through  creeks  and  inlets  making. 
Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main. 

And  not  by  eastern  windows  only, 

When  daylight  comes,  comes  in  the  light; 

In  front  the  sun  climbs  slow,  how  slowly! 
But  westward,  look,  the  land  is  bright! " 


Ill 

THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 


An  Interview  with  Edward  Marshall  printed  in  the  New 
York  Times,  October  i8,  191 4 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

What  will  be  in  substance  a  United  States  of 
Europe,  a  more  or  less  formal  federation  of  the 
self-governing  countries  of  Europe,  may  be 
the  outcome  of  the  demonstrated  failure  of  the 
existing  national  system  to  adjust  government 
to  the  growth  of  civilization.  The  ending  of 
the  present  war  may  see  the  rising  of  the  sun 
of  democracy  to  light  a  new  day  of  freedom 
even  for  those  of  our  transatlantic  neighbors 
who  now  seem  most  remote  from  it. 

Thinking  men  in  all  the  contending  nations 
are  beginning  seriously  to  consider  such  a  con- 
tingency, to  argue  for  it  or  against  it;  in  other 
words,  to  regard  it  as  an  undoubted  possibility. 

The  European  cataclysm  puts  the  people  of 

the  United  States  in  a  unique  and  tremendously 

important  position.     As  neutrals  we  are  able 

to  observe  events  and  to  learn  the  lessons  that 

they  teach.     If  we  learn  rightly  we  may  gain 

for  ourselves  and  be  able  to  confer  upon  others 

benefits  far  more  important  than  any  of  the 

material   advantages  which   may  come  to  us 

27 


28     THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

through  a  shrewd  handling  of  the  new  possi- 
bihties  in  international  trade. 

Prophecy  is  always  hazardous,  and  never 
more  so  than  now,  but  it  seems  clear  that  the 
world  is  at  the  crossroads  and  that  everything 
may  depend  upon  the  United  States,  which 
has  been  thrust  by  events  into  a  unique  posi- 
tion of  moral  leadership.  Whether  the  march 
of  the  future  is  to  be  to  the  right  or  to  the  left, 
up  hill  or  down,  after  the  war  is  over,  may  well 
depend  upon  the  course  this  nation  shall  now 
take,  and  upon  the  influence  which  it  shall 
exercise.  If  we  keep  our  heads  clear  there  are 
two  things  that  we  can  bring  insistently  to  the 
attention  of  Europe — each  of  vast  import  at 
such  a  time  as  that  which  will  follow  the  end- 
ing of  the  war. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  fact  that  race  antag- 
onisms tend  to  die  away  and  disappear  under 
the  influence  of  liberal  and  enlightened  political 
institutions.  This  has  been  proved  in  the 
United  States.  We  have  huge  Celtic,  Latin, 
Teutonic,  and  Slavonic  populations  all  living 
here  at  peace  and  in  harmony;  and  as  years 
pass  they  tend  to  merge,  creating  new  and 
homogeneous  types.     The  Old  World  antago- 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     29 

nisms  have  become  memories.  This  proves 
that  such  antagonisms  are  not  mysterious  attri- 
butes of  geography  or  of  chmate,  but  that  they 
are  the  outgrowth  chiefly  of  social  and  poHtical 
conditions.  Here  a  man  can  do  about  what 
he  Hkes,  so  long  as  he  does  not  violate  the  law; 
he  may  pray  as  he  pleases  or  not  at  all,  and 
he  may  speak  any  language  that  he  chooses. 
The  United  States  is  itself  proof  that  most  of 
the  contentions  of  Europeans  as  to  race  an- 
tagonisms are  ill-founded.  We  have  demon- 
strated that  racial  antagonisms  need  not  nec- 
essarily become  the  basis  of  permanent  hatred 
and  an  excuse  for  war. 

If  human  beings  are  given  the  chance  they 
will  make  the  most  of  themselves,  and  by  liv- 
ing happily — ^which  means  living  in  justice 
and  at  peace — they  will  avoid  conflict.  The 
hyphen  tends  to  disappear  from  American  ter- 
minology. The  German-American,  the  Italo- 
American,  the  Irish-American  all  become  Amer- 
icans. So,  by  and  large,  our  institutions  have 
proved  their  capacity  to  amalgamate  and  to 
set  free  every  type  of  human  being  which  thus 
far  has  come  under  our  flag.  There  is  in  this 
a  lesson  which  may  well  be  taken  seriously  to 


so     THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

heart  by  the  leaders  of  opinion  in  Europe  when 
this  war  ends. 

The  second  thing  which  we  may  with  pro- 
priety press  upon  the  attention  of  the  people 
of  Europe  after  peace  comes  to  them,  is  the 
fact  that  we  are  not  only  the  great  exponents, 
but  the  great  example,  of  the  success  of  the 
principle  of  federation  as  a  basis  of  unity  in 
political  life  regardless  of  local,  economic,  and 
racial  differences.  If  our  fathers  had  attempted 
to  organize  this  country  upon  the  basis  of  a 
single,  closely  unified  State,  it  would  have  gone 
to  smash  almost  at  the  outset,  wrecked  by 
clashing  economic  and  personal  interests.  In- 
deed, this  nearly  happened  in  the  civil  war, 
which  was  more  economic  than  political  in  its 
origin.  But,  though  we  had  our  difficulties, 
we  did  find  a  way  to  make  a  unified  nation  of 
a  hundred  million  people  and  forty-eight  com- 
monwealths, all  bound  together  in  unity  and 
in  loyalty  to  a  common  political  ideal  and  a 
common  political  purpose.  Why  is  not  this 
principle  of  federation,  not  in  all  its  details  but 
in  its  fundamentals,  applicable  to  a  group  of 
European  States  that  wish  to  achieve  a  com- 
mon purpose .? 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     31 

There  might  readily  be  a  federation  into  the 
United  States  of  Europe. 

When  one  nation  sets  out  to  assert  itself  by 
force  against  the  will,  or  even  the  wish,  of  its 
neighbors,  disaster  must  inevitably  come.  Dis- 
aster would  have  come  here  if,  in  1789,  New 
York  had  endeavored  to  assert  itself  against 
New  England  or  Pennsylvania.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  certain  inhabitants  of  Rhode  Island  and 
of  Pennsylvania  did  try  something  of  the  sort 
after  the  Federal  Government  had  been  formed, 
but,  fortunately,  their  effort  was  a  failure.  The 
leaders  of  our  national  life  had  established  so 
flexible  and  so  admirable  a  plan  of  government 
that  it  was  soon  apparent  that  each  State  could 
retain  its  identity,  form  its  own  ideals  and 
shape  its  own  progress,  and  still  remain  a  loyal 
part  of  the  whole  nation;  that  each  State  could 
make  a  place  for  itself  in  the  new  federation 
and  not  be  destroyed  thereby. 

There  is  no  reason  why  each  nation  in 
Europe  should  not  make  a  place  for  itself  in 
the  sun  of  unity  which  I  feel  sure  is  rising 
there  behind  the  war-clouds.  Europe's  stu- 
pendous economic  loss,  which  already  has  been 
appalling  and   will  soon   be  incalculable,  will 


32      THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

give  us  an  opportunity  to  press  this  argument 
home. 

True  internationalism  is  not  the  enemy  of 
the  nationalistic  principle.  On  the  contrary, 
it  helps  true  nationalism  to  thrive.  The  Ver- 
monter  is  more  a  Vermonter  because  he  is  an 
American,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  Hun- 
gary, for  example,  should  not  be  more  than 
ever  before  Hungarian  after  it  becomes  a  mem- 
ber of  the  United  States  of  Europe. 

Europe,  of  course,  is  not  without  examples 
of  the  successful  application  of  the  principle  of 
federation  within  itself.  It  so  happens  that 
the  federated  State  next  greatest  to  our  own 
is  the  German  Empire.  It  is  only  forty-three 
years  old,  but  there  federation  has  been  nota- 
bly successful.  The  idea  of  federation  is  per- 
fectly familiar  to  German  publicists. 

It  is  familiar,  also,  to  the  English,  and  has 
lately  been  pressed  as  the  probable  final  solu- 
tion of  the  Irish  question.  It  has  insistently 
suggested  itself  as  the  solution  of  the  Balkan 
problem.  In  a  lesser  way  it  already  is  repre- 
sented in  the  structure  of  Austria-Hungary. 
This  principle  of  nation-building,  of  interna- 
tional   building    through    federation,    certainly 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     33 

has  In  It  the  seeds  of  the  world's  next  great 
development — and  we  Americans  are  In  a  posi- 
tion both  to  expound  the  theory  and  to  illus- 
trate the  practice.  This  may  be  the  greatest 
work  which  America  will  have  to  do  at  the  end 
of  this  war. 

The  cataclysm  is  so  awful  that  It  Is  quite 
within  the  bounds  of  truth  to  say  that  the 
world  can  never  again  be  the  same  as  it 
was.  This  conflict  Is  the  birth-throe  of  a  new 
European  order  of  things.  The  man  who  at- 
tempts to  judge  the  future  by  the  old  standards 
or  to  force  the  future  back  to  them  will  be 
found  to  be  hopelessly  out  of  date.  The  world 
will  have  no  use  for  him.  The  world  has  left 
behind  forever  the  International  policies  of 
Palmerston  and  of  Beaconsfield  and  even  those 
of  Bismarck,  which  were  far  more  powerful. 
When  the  war  ends,  conditions  will  be  such 
that  a  new  kind  of  Imagination  and  a  new 
kind  of  statesmanship  will  be  required.  This 
war  will  prove  to  be  the  most  eflPectlve  edu- 
cation of  500,000,000  people  which  could  pos- 
sibly have  been  thought  of,  although  It  Is  the 
most  costly  and  most  terrible  means  which 
could  have  been  chosen.     The  results  of  this 


34     THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

education  will  be  shown  in  the  process  of 
general  reconstruction  which  will  doubtless 
follow. 

All  the  talk  of  which  so  much  is  heard  about 
the  peril  from  the  Slav  or  from  the  Teuton  or 
from  the  Celt  is  unworthy  of  serious  attention. 
It  would  be  quite  as  reasonable  to  discuss  seri- 
ously the  red-headed  peril  or  the  six-footer 
peril.  There  is  no  peril  to  the  world  in  the 
Slav,  the  Teuton,  the  Celt,  or  any  other  race, 
provided  the  people  of  that  race  have  an  op- 
portunity to  develop  as  social  and  economic 
units,  and  are  not  so  bound  and  confined  by 
tyranny  as  to  force  an  explosion,  or  so  deluded 
by  militarism  and  national  chauvinism  as  to 
become  a  public  danger.  It  is  not  races  but 
wrong  ideas  that  are  dangerous. 

No  form  of  government  will  long  be  toler- 
ated which  does  not  set  men  free  to  develop 
in  their  own  way. 

The  international  organization  of  the  world 
already  has  progressed  much  farther  than  is 
ordinarily  understood.  Ever  since  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  and  the  Geneva  Arbitration, 
both  landmarks  in  modern  history,  this  organi- 
zation has   advanced   inconspicuously,  but   by 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     35 

leaps  and  bounds.  The  postal  service  of  the 
world  has  been  internationalized  in  its  control 
for  years.  The  several  Postal  Conventions 
have  given  evidences  of  an  international  ad- 
ministrative organization  of  the  highest  order. 
Europe  abounds  in  illustrations  of  the  interna- 
tional administration  of  large  things.  The  very 
laws  of  war,  which  are  at  present  the  subject 
of  so  much  and  such  bitter  discussion,  are  the 
result  of  international  organization.  They  were 
not  adopted  by  a  Congress,  a  Parliament,  or  a 
Reichstag.  They  were  agreed  to  by  many  and 
divergent  peoples,  who  sent  representatives  to 
meet  for  their  discussion  and  determination. 
In  the  admiralty  law  we  have  a  most  striking 
example  of  uniformity  of  practice  in  all  parts 
of  the  world.  If  a  ship  is  captured  or  harmed 
in  the  Far  East  and  taken  into  Yokohama  or 
Nagasaki,  damages  will  be  assessed  and  col- 
lected precisely  as  they  would  be  in  New  York 
or  Liverpool.  The  world  is  gradually  develop- 
ing a  code  for  international  legal  procedure. 
Special  arbitral  tribunals  have  tended  to  merge 
and  to  grow  into  the  international  court  at 
The  Hague,  and  that  in  turn  will  develop  until 
it  becomes  a  real  supreme  judicial  tribunal. 


36      THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

Of  course  the  analogy  between  the  federated 
State  and  a  federation  of  nations  fails  at  some 
points,  but  the  time  will  come  when  each 
nation  will  deposit  in  a  world  federation  some 
portion  of  its  sovereignty  for  the  general  good. 
When  this  happens  it  will  be  possible  to  estab- 
lish an  international  executive  and  an  inter- 
national police,  both  devised  for  the  especial 
purpose  of  enforcing  the  decisions  of  the  inter- 
national court. 

Here,  again,  the  United  States  offers  a  per- 
fect object-lesson.  Its  central  government  is 
one  of  limited  and  defined  powers.  Its  history 
can  show  Europe  how  such  limitations  and 
definitions  may  be  established  and  interpreted, 
and  how  they  may  be  modified  and  amended 
when  necessary  to  meet  new  conditions.  There 
will  be  annotated  reports  of  the  decisions  of  the 
several  international  arbitration  tribunals  and 
of  the  international  court  of  justice,  in  order 
that  the  governments  and  jurists  of  the  world 
may  have  at  hand,  as  they  have  in  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  reports,  a  record  of  de- 
cided cases,  which,  when  the  time  comes,  may 
be  referred  to  as  precedents.  It  will  be  through 
gradual  processes  such  as  these  that  the  great 


TEE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     37 

end  will  be  accomplished.  Beginning  with 
such  annotated  reports  as  a  basis  for  prece- 
dents, each  new  case  tried  before  this  tribunal 
will  add  a  farther  precedent,  and  presently  a 
complete  international  code  will  be  in  exist- 
ence. It  was  in  this  way  that  the  English  com- 
mon law  was  built,  and  such  has  been  the  his- 
tory of  the  admirable  work  done  by  our  own 
judicial  system.  The  study  of  such  problems 
as  these  is  at  this  time  infinitely  more  impor- 
tant than  the  consideration  of  how  large  a  fine 
shall  be  inflicted  by  the  victors  upon  the  van- 
quished. 

There  is  the  probability  of  some  dislocation 
of  territory  and  some  shiftings  of  sovereignty 
after  the  war  ends,  but  these  will  be  of  com- 
paratively minor  importance. 

Dislocation  of  territory  and  the  shifting  of 
sovereigns  as  the  result  of  international  disa- 
greements are  mediaeval  practices.  After  this 
war  the  world  will  want  to  solve  its  problems 
in  terms  of  the  future,  not  in  those  of  the  out- 
grown past.  The  important  result  of  this 
great  war  will  be  the  stimulation  of  interna- 
tional organization  along  some  such  lines  as 
those  suggested. 


38  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

Conventional  diplomacy  and  conventional 
statesmanship  have  very  evidently  broken 
down  in  Europe.  They  have  made  a  disas- 
trous failure  of  the  work  with  which  they  were 
intrusted.  They  did  not  and  could  not  pre- 
vent the  war  because  they  knew  and  used  only 
the  old  formulas.  They  had  no  tools  for  a 
job  like  this.  A  new  type  of  international 
statesman  is  certain  to  arise,  a  statesman  who 
will  have  a  grasp  of  new  tendencies,  a  new 
outlook  upon  life.  Bismarck  used  to  say  that 
it  would  pay  any  nation  to  wear  the  clean 
linen  of  a  civilized  State.  The  truth  of  this 
must  be  taught  to  those  nations  of  the  world 
which  are  weakest  in  morale,  and  it  can  only 
be  done  as  similar  work  is  accomplished  with 
individuals.  Courts,  not  killings,  have  accom- 
plished it  with  individuals. 

One  more  point  ought  to  be  remembered. 
We  sometimes  hear  it  said  that  nationalism, 
the  desire  for  national  expression  by  each  indi- 
vidual nation,  makes  the  permanent  peace  and 
good  order  of  the  world  impossible.  It  seems 
absurd  to  believe  that  this  is  any  truer  of  na- 
tions than  it  is  of  individuals.  It  is  not  each 
nation's  desire  for  national  expression  which 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     39 

makes  peace  impossible;  it  is  the  fact  that  thus 
far  in  the  world's  history  such  desire  has  been 
bound  up  with  militarism.  The  nation  whose 
frontier  bristles  with  bayonets  and  with  forts 
is  like  the  individual  with  a  magazine  pistol  in 
his  pocket.  Both  make  for  murder.  Both  in 
their  hearts  really  mean  murder.  The  world 
will  be  better  when  the  nations  invite  the  judg- 
ment of  their  neighbors  and  are  influenced  by 
it.  When  John  Hay  said  that  the  Golden  Rule 
and  the  Open  Door  should  guide  our  new  diplo- 
macy, he  said  something  which  should  be  ap- 
plicable to  the  new  diplomacy  of  the  whole 
world.  The  Golden  Rule  and  a  free  chance 
are  all  that  any  man  ought  to  want  or  ought 
to  have,  and  they  are  all  that  any  nation  ought 
to  want  or  ought  to  have. 

One  of  the  controlling  principles  of  a  demo- 
cratic State  is  that  its  military  and  naval 
establishments  must  be  completely  subservient 
to  the  civil  power.  They  should  form  the  po- 
lice, and  not  be  the  dominant  factor  of  any 
nation's  life.  As  soon  as  they  go  beyond  this 
simple  function  in  any  nation,  then  that  nation 
is  afflicted  with  militarism. 

It  is  difficult  to  make  predictions  as  to  the 


40     THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

war's  effect  on  us.  Our  position  will  depend 
a  good  deal  upon  the  outcome  of  the  conflict, 
and  what  that  will  be  no  one  at  present  can 
tell.  If  a  new  map  of  Europe  follows  the  war, 
its  permanence  will  depend  upon  whether  or 
not  the  changes  are  such  as  will  permit  nation- 
alities to  organize  as  nations.  The  world 
should  have  learned  through  the  lessons  of  the 
past  that  it  is  impossible  permanently  and 
peacefully  to  submerge  large  bodies  of  aliens 
if  they  are  treated  as  aliens.  That  is  the  op- 
posite of  the  mixing  process  which  is  still 
building  a  nation  out  of  varied  nationalities 
in  the  United  States.  The  old  Romans  un- 
derstood this.  They  permitted  their  outlying 
vassal  nations  to  speak  any  language  they 
chose  and  to  worship  whatever  god  they  chose, 
so  long  as  they  recognized  the  sovereignty  of 
Rome.  When  a  conquering  nation  goes  beyond 
that  and  begins  to  suppress  religions,  languages, 
and  customs,  it  also  begins,  at  that  very  mo- 
ment, to  sow  the  seeds  of  insurrection  and 
revolution. 

A  true  nation  has  been  defined  as  an  ethno- 
graphic unit  inhabiting  a  geographic  unit. 
That  is  an  illuminating  definition.     If  a  nation 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     41 

is  not  an  ethnographic  unit,  it  tries  to  become 
one  by  oppressing  or  amalgamating  the  weaker 
portions  of  its  people.  If  it  is  not  a  geographic 
unit,  it  tries  to  become  one  by  reaching  out  to 
a  mountain  chain  or  to  the  sea — to  something 
which  will  serve  as  a  real  dividing-line  between 
it  and  its  next  neighbors.  The  accuracy  of 
this  definition  can  hardly  be  denied,  and  we 
all  know  what  the  violations  of  this  principle 
have  been  in  Europe.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
point  them  out. 

Races  rarely  have  been  successfully  mixed 
by  conquest.  The  military  victor  in  a  war  is 
not  always  the  real  conqueror  in  the  long  run. 
The  Normans  conquered  Saxon  England,  but 
Saxon  law  and  Saxon  institutions  worked  up 
through  the  new  power  and  have  dominated 
England's  later  history.  The  Teutonic  tribes 
conquered  Rome,  but  Roman  civilization,  by 
a  sort  of  capillary  attraction,  went  up  into  the 
mass  above  and  presently  dominated  the  Teu- 
tons. The  persistency  of  a  civilization  may 
well  be  superior  in  tenacity  to  mere  military 
conquest  and  control. 

The  smallness  of  the  number  of  instances  in 
which  conquering  nations  have  been  able  sue- 


42      THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

cessfully  to  deal  with  alien  peoples  is  extraordi- 
nary. The  Romans  were  usually  successful, 
and  England  has  been  successful  with  all  but 
the  Irish;  but  perhaps  no  other  peoples  have 
been  successful  in  high  degree  in  an  effort  to 
hold  alien  populations  as  vassals  or  as  fellow 
subjects  and  to  make  them  really  happy  and 
comfortable  as  such. 

One  of  the  war's  chief  effects  on  us  will  be 
to  change  our  point  of  view.  Europe  will  be 
more  vivid  to  us  from  now  on.  There  are 
many  American  public  men  who  have  never 
thought  much  about  Europe,  and  who  have 
been  far  from  a  realization  of  its  actual  impor- 
tance to  us.  It  has  been  a  place  in  which 
to  pass  a  summer  holiday.  But  suddenly 
Americans  find  they  cannot  sell  their  cotton  in 
Europe  or  their  copper,  that  they  cannot  mar- 
ket their  stocks  and  bonds  there,  that  they  can- 
not send  money  to  their  families  who  are  trav- 
elling there,  because  there  is  a  war.  To  such 
men  the  war  must  have  made  it  apparent  that 
interdependence  among  nations  is  more  than  a 
mere  phrase.  Our  entire  trade  and  all  our 
economic  and  social  policies  must  recognize  this 
fact.     The  world   has   discovered  that  money 


THE   UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     43 

without  credit  means  little.  One  cannot  use 
money  if  one  cannot  use  one's  credit  to  draw 
it  whenever  and  wherever  needed.  Credit  is 
intangible  and  volatile,  and  may  be  destroyed 
overnight.  International  credit  imphes  na- 
tional interdependence. 

This  realization  of  national  interdependence 
will  elevate  and  refine  our  patriotism  by 
teaching  men  a  wider  sympathy  and  a  deeper 
understanding  of  other  peoples,  nations,  and 
languages.  I  sincerely  hope  it  will  educate  us 
up  to  what  I  have  called  "the  international 
mind." 

There  are  hopeful  signs,  even  in  the  midst 
of  the  gloom  that  hangs  over  us.  Think  what 
it  has  meant  for  the  great  nations  of  Europe  to 
come  to  us,  as  they  have  done,  asking  our 
favorable  public  opinion.  We  have  no  army 
and  no  navy  worthy  of  their  fears.  They  can 
have  been  induced  by  nothing  save  their  con- 
viction that  we  are  the  possessors  of  sound 
political  ideals  and  are  a  great  moral  force  in 
the  world.  In  other  words,  they  do  not  now 
want  us  to  fight  for  them,  but  they  do  want 
us  to  approve  of  them.  They  want  us  to  pass 
judgment  upon  the  humanity  and  the  legality 


44     THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE 

of  their  acts,  because  they  feel  that  our  judg- 
ment will  be  the  judgment  of  history.  There 
is  a  lesson  in  this. 

If  we  had  not  repealed  the  Panama  Canal 
Tolls  Exemption  act  in  June,  1914,  the  Euro- 
pean nations  might  not  have  come  to  us  as 
they  are  doing  now.  Who  would  have  cared 
for  our  opinion  in  the  matter  of  a  treaty  viola- 
tion if,  for  mere  financial  interest  or  from  sheer 
vanity,  we  ourselves  had  violated  a  solemn 
treaty  ?  When  Congress  repealed  the  Panama 
Canal  Tolls  Exemption  act  it  marked  an  epoch 
in  the  history  of  the  United  States.  This  did 
more  than  the  Spanish  War,  more  than  the 
building  of  the  Panama  Canal  or  than  any- 
thing else  I  can  think  of  to  make  us  a  true 
world  power.  As  a  nation  we  have  kept  our 
word  when  sorely  tempted  to  break  it.  We 
made  Cuba  independent,  we  have  not  exploited 
the  Philippines,  we  have  stood  by  our  word  as 
to  Panama  Canal  tolls. 

In  consequence  we  are  the  first  moral  power 
in  the  world  to-day.  Others  may  be  first 
with  armies,  still  others  first  with  navies.  But 
we  have  made  good  our  right  to  be  appealed 
to  on  questions  of  national  and  international 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  EUROPE     45 

morality.  That  Europe  is  seeking  our  favor  is 
the  acknowledgment  of  this  fact  by  the  Euro- 
pean nations  and  their  tribute  to  it. 


IV 


THE    UNITED    STATES    AS   A    WORLD 

POWER 


An    Interview   with    Edward    Marshall    printed    in  the 
New  York  Times,  May  i6,  1915 


THE  UNITED   STATES  AS  A  WORLD 

POWER 

When  one  speaks  of  the  United  States  as  a 
world  power,  and  of  its  future  opportunities  as 
such,  one  must  stop  to  ask  whether  he  is  using 
the  term  "world  power*'  in  the  military  sense 
with  reference  to  the  rule  of  force,  or  in  the 
moral  sense  with  reference  to  the  rule  of  ideals 
and  of  law.  The  history  of  the  world  makes 
it  pretty  plain  that  there  is  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  two. 

Our  present-day  philosophy  of  life  makes  it 
equally  plain  that  it  is  world  power  resting  on 
ideals  and  on  law  that  the  United  States  should 
aim  at — the  world  power  of  the  future — and 
not  the  sort  of  world  power  which  rests  on 
force — the  world  power  of  the  past.  With  the 
passing  of  the  years,  with  the  increase  in  area 
and  the  multiplication  of  population,  the 
United  States  has  become  at  once  the  largest, 
the  richest,  and  the  most  powerful  exemplar 
of  democratic  institutions  on  the  globe.  Any 
claim  which  it   may   have  to  being  a  world 

49 


so  THE  UNITED  STATES 

power  to-day  and  any  hope  which  it  may  have 
of  increasing  or  extending  this  world  power  in 
future  must  rest  upon  its  being  true  to  the 
ideals  and  aims  of  democracy,  not  only  in  form 
but  in  spirit  and  in  fact.  The  very  just  in- 
dignation of  the  American  people  at  the  de- 
struction of  the  Lusitania,  involving,  as  it  did, 
the  loss  of  hundreds  of  lives  of  neutrals  and 
non-combatants,  including  many  women  and 
children,  as  well  as  the  inexplicable  attack 
upon  the  American  ship  Gulflight,  only  empha- 
size the  necessity  of  maintaining  our  purpose 
to  enforce  the  rights  which  attach  to  neutrals. 
To  do  this  successfully  will  of  itself  be  a  mani- 
festation of  world  power  on  a  great  scale.  The 
present  situation  is  very  acute  and  very  diffi- 
cult, but  it  ought  not  and  I  think  will  not  be 
beyond  the  power  of  the  American  government 
and  the  American  people  to  deal  with  it  in  a 
spirit  of  justice  that  will  both  emphasize  and 
enforce  our  position  as  a  neutral  nation  and 
resist  any  effort  to  cloud  the  issue  by  irrelevant 
appeals. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  way  in  which  the  neu- 
trality of  the  United  States  has  been  mani- 
fested in  the  present  war  has  not  wholly  com- 


AS  A   WORLD  POWER  51 

mended  us  as  a  people  to  any  one  of  the 
belligerent  powers.  This,  perhaps,  was  to  be 
expected,  but  it  would  be  unfortunate  if  any- 
feeling  of  criticism  of  the  United  States  for 
having  done  some  things  and  for  having  omit- 
ted to  do  others,  should  extend  to  the  point 
of  weakening  European  confidence  in  the  abil- 
ity and  willingness  of  the  American  people  to 
do  justice  between  the  belligerents  and  the 
policies  they  represent  when  this  war  shall 
come  to  an  end,  or  in  their  capacity  to  grasp 
the  real  underlying  issues  of  the  war  itself. 

The  notion  that  the  present  struggle  is 
merely  a  European  war,  in  which  no  one  has 
any  interest  except  the  governments  and  citi- 
zens of  the  several  belligerent  powers  is  gro- 
tesque. It  is  a  world  war  in  which  every  neu- 
tral power  is  more  or  less  involved,  and  the 
huge  cost  of  which  every  neutral  power  will  be 
called  upon  to  share  more  or  less  heavily.  It 
may  be  safely  predicted  that  when  the  bills  are 
all  in  and  receipted  a  generation  or  two  hence, 
the  cost  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  will 
prove  to  have  been  stupendous.  All  these  are 
reasons  why  the  world  power  of  the  American 
democracy  ought  of  right  to  be  exerted   and 


52  THE  UNITED  STATES 

should,  as  a  matter  of  policy  and  of  national 
interest,  be  exerted  when  hostilities  shall  end, 
to  compose  the  differences  and  the  difficulties 
out  of  which  this  war  has  grown,  and  to  remove 
their  causes;  and  they  are  also  reasons  why 
nothing  should  be  done  which  will  weaken  our 
world  influence. 

It  is  a  very  difficult  and  delicate  matter  to 
suggest  to  another  people  that  one's  own  form 
of  government  is  better  than  that  which,  at 
the  moment,  others  enjoy.  This  is  something 
which  the  United  States  could  not  formally  or 
officially  do.  Nevertheless,  it  would  be  sheer 
hypocrisy  to  conceal  the  fact  that  the  public 
opinion  of  the  United  States  is  substantially 
unanimous  in  holding  that  the  peace  of  the 
world  is  more  secure  when  foreign  relations 
and  foreign  policies  are  determined  and  con- 
trolled by  representatives  of  the  people,  than 
when  these  are  wholly  confided  to  dynasties 
or  to  diplomats,  however  beloved  or  however 
talented.  The  democratic  principle  cannot  be 
said  to  insure  international  peace,  but  with 
equal  certainty  it  can  be  said  to  make  im- 
possible certain  kinds  of  war.  It  makes  im- 
possible all  those  numerous  wars  that  grow  out 


AS  A   WORLD  POWER  53 

of  dynastic  ambitions  and  policies,  out  of  se- 
cret alliances  and  out  of  confidential  under- 
standings of  one  sort  and  another  between 
monarchs  and  foreign  offices.  The  democratic 
principle  for  which  the  United  States  stands 
and  which,  after  allowing  for  all  mistakes  and 
inequities,  it  has  done  so  much  to  advance, 
diminishes  the  chance  of  conflict  based  upon 
difference  in  religion  and  difference  in  race, 
by  insisting  that  neither  of  these  differences 
be  given  any  recognition  before  the  law.  It  is 
obvious  that  if  the  United  States  is  to  achieve 
and  to  exercise  a  world  power  based  upon  its 
sincere  democracy,  we  must  have  a  care  that 
at  home  these  principles  are  always  kept  clearly 
in  mind  and  are  not  departed  from  in  our  own 
political  practice.  We  have  among  us  a  good 
many  persons,  and  some  groups  of  importance 
and  considerable  size,  that  are  not  inclined  to 
be  any  too  particular  about  insisting  upon  the 
application  of  these  fundamental  democratic 
principles,  if,  by  overlooking  them,  they  them- 
selves can  gain  some  immediate  political  or 
personal  end.  To  all  such  it  may  be  pointed 
out  that  while,  of  course,  a  nation  must  protect 
itself,  morally,   intellectually,    and   physically, 


54  THE  UNITED  STATES 

yet  it  must  protect  itself  by  the  application  of 
its  fundamental  principles  and  not  by  the  denial 
or  forgetfulness  of  them. 

One  trait  the  people  of  the  United  States 
possess  to  an  extent  that  never  before  has  been 
recorded  in  the  history  of  any  nation,  and  that 
is  the  admirable  trait  of  generosity  and  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  distressed,  the  afflicted,  and  the 
stricken  in  any  part  of  the  world.  Recognition 
of  this  fact  must  add  greatly  to  our  world  in- 
fluence. At  the  very  time  that  some  European 
observers  have  been  denouncing  the  American 
people  as  mere  traders,  making  money  and 
gain  out  of  the  distressful  conflict  in  Europe, 
those  same  American  people  have  been  pour- 
ing out  not  only  millions  of  dollars,  but  life, 
energy,  and  service  in  the  eff"ort  to  carry  food 
and  clothing  to  the  starving  and  ill-clad  Bel- 
gians, to  eliminate  the  fearful  plague  of  typhus 
in  Serbia,  and  to  aid  in  giving  the  best  medical 
and  surgical  service  to  the  sick  and  wounded 
in  the  armies  of  Germany,  Austria,  Russia, 
France,  and  Great  Britain.  It  may  very  well 
be  doubted  if  anywhere  in  history  there  is  re- 
corded an  equal  display,  prompt  and  over- 
whelming, of  generous  aid  and  tender  human 


AS  A   WORLD  POWER  55 

sympathy,  regardless  of  the  station,  rank,  na- 
tionality, or  opinions  of  those  who  needed  help. 
These  facts  reveal  a  people  playing  the  Good 
Samaritan  on  a  huge  scale,  and  they  illustrate 
what  is  meant  by  world  leadership  based  on 
ideals.  The  nation  whose  people  render  ser- 
vices like  these  will  never  be  forgotten  in  tens 
of  thousands  of  villages  and  farm  firesides  all 
the  way  from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Cau- 
casus. 

If  one  is  asked  what  power  the  United  States 
can  exert  at  the  conclusion  of  this  war,  no  defi- 
nite answer  can  be  given  at  the  moment,  be- 
cause everything  will  depend  upon  which  of 
the  combatants  is  victorious.  In  any  case, 
however,  the  United  States  ought  to  direct  the 
attention  of  the  nations  now  belligerent  to 
these  specific  points: 

First,  that  the  various  Hague  Conventions, 
solemnly  entered  into  in  1899  and  in  1907,  have 
been  violated  frequently  since  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities,  and  that,  obviously,  some  greater 
and  more  secure  sanction  for  such  Conventions 
must  be  provided  in  the  future. 

Second,  that  in  not  a  few  instances  the 
rules  and  usages  of  international  law  have  been 


56  THE  UNITED  STATES 

thrown  to  the  winds,  to  the  discredit  of  the 
belHgerents  themselves  and  to  the  grave  dis- 
tress, physically  and  commercially,  of  neutral 
powers. 

Of  course  every  one  understands  that  inter- 
national law  is  merely  a  series  of  conventions 
without  other  than  moral  sanction.  If,  how- 
ever, the  world  has  gone  back  to  the  point 
where  a  nation's  plighted  faith  is  not  moral 
sanction  enough,  then  that  fact  and  its  impli- 
cations ought  to  be  clearly  understood  and 
appropriate  punitive  action  provided  for. 

Third,  that  any  attempt  to  submerge  na- 
tionalities in  nations  other  than  their  own  is 
certain  to  result  in  friction  and  conflict  in  the 
not  distant  future.  Any  attempt  to  create 
new  nations,  or  to  enlarge  or  diminish  the  area 
of  nations,  without  having  regard  to  national- 
ity, is  simply  to  organize  a  future  war. 

Fourth,  that  the  transfer  of  sovereignty  over 
any  given  district  or  people  without  their  con- 
sent is  certainly  an  unwise  and  probably  an 
unjust  action  for  any  government  to  take, 
having  regard  for  the  peace  and  happiness  of 
the  world. 

Fifth,   that    the    international    organization 


AS  A   WORLD  POWER  57 

which  had  been  carried  so  far  in  such  fields  as 
maritime  law,  postal  service,  railway  service, 
and  international  arbitration,  should  be  taken 
up  anew  and  pursued  more  vigorously,  but 
upon  a  sounder  and  a  broader  foundation,  and 
made  a  certain  means  of  protecting  the  smaller 
and  the  weaker  nations. 

Sixth,  that  competitive  armaments,  instead 
of  being  an  assurance  against  war,  are  a  sure 
cause  of  war  and  an  equally  certain  preventive 
of  those  policies  of  social  reform  and  advance 
that  enlightened  peoples  everywhere  are  eager 
to  pursue. 

Everything  would  depend  upon  the  sincer- 
ity, the  good  temper,  and  the  sympathy  with 
which  suggestions  such  as  these  were  made 
and  followed  up.  A  first  step  toward  the  ac- 
complishment of  these  ends  is  to  create  what 
some  of  us  have  long  hoped  for  and  felt  to  be 
possible,  and  what  Mr.  Asquith,  in  one  of  the 
greatest  speeches  made  since  the  war  began, 
clearly  indicated  to  be  within  the  range  of 
practical  statesmanship — namely,  a  method  by 
which  the  nations  of  Europe  may  be  so  or- 
ganized as  to  develop  a  common  will.  When 
that  step  is  taken  then  the  United  States  can 


58  TEE  UNITED  STATES 

point  out  the  lessons  which  the  history  of  our 
own  federal  system  so  clearly  teaches. 

No  one  in  his  senses  could  suppose  that 
Europe,  with  its  varied  races  and  languages, 
could  ever  be  welded  into  such  a  national  unit 
as  the  United  States,  where  a  diverse  popula- 
tion rests  on  a  common  English  speech  and 
the  English  common  law;  but  the  principle 
which  the  United  States  Government  exempli- 
fies is  applicable,  in  my  judgment,  mutatis  mu- 
tandisj  to  a  United  States  of  Europe.  The  be- 
ginnings of  the  central  organ  of  the  common 
will  would  probably  be  very  simple  and  very 
slight.  They  might  be  chiefly  judicial  in  char- 
acter; if  so,  then  so  much  the  better.  It  will 
not  be  forgotten  that  some  of  the  justices  of 
the  first  United  States  Supreme  Court  wanted 
to  resign  because  no  case  came  before  the  Court 
for  a  year  after  it  was  organized.  They  said 
there  was  apparently  no  need  for  such  a  court 
and  that  there  was  nothing  for  it  to  do. 

The  world  could  very  well  afford  to  have 
Europe  begin  in  the  same  simple  way  and  trust 
to  the  force  of  ideas  and  the  interest  of  nations 
in  co-operation — their  financial,  their  commer- 
cial, their  intellectual   interest — to   strengthen 


AS  A   WORLD  POWER  .  59 

and  to  develop  whatever  organ  they  chose  to 
create  at  the  outset. 

The  greatest  achievements  of  the  United 
States  have  always  tended  toward  peace,  even 
when  they  have  been  warlike.  The  Spanish 
War  was  not  an  attack  upon  a  people  at  peace, 
but  a  war  for  the  purpose  of  stopping  war. 
The  events  of  the  early  spring  and  the  summer 
of  1898  are  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  Span- 
ish-American War.  To  me  they  have  always 
seemed  more  like  the  doing  of  such  work  as  the 
police  and  fire  departments  combined  might  be 
called  upon  to  perform  in  a  great  city.  What 
was  done  then  by  the  United  States  was,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  to  suppress  a  riot  and  to 
put  out  a  conflagration.  If  the  United  States 
had  enriched  itself  as  a  result  of  that  action  by 
annexing  the  island  of  Cuba,  the  action  itself 
would  have  lost  all  its  moral  significance. 

Through  the  action  taken  at  the  instance  of 
Senator  Teller  of  Colorado  and  that  taken  at 
the  instance  of  Senator  Piatt  of  Connecticut — 
although  in  fairness  to  both  the  living  and  the 
dead  it  ought  to  be  said  that  the  strongest  in- 
fluence in  drafting  the  Piatt  Amendment  was 
that  of  Elihu  Root — the  United  States  made  it 


6o^  THE  UNITED  STATES 

plain  that  what  it  was  doing  was  done  in  the 
interest  of  the  people  of  Cuba  and  in  the  inter- 
est of  humanity.  In  the  large  sense,  therefore, 
this  whole  undertaking  was  a  policy  making 
for  peace,  for  good  order,  for  human  happiness. 
In  the  same  way  it  was  to  a  President  of  the 
United  States  and  to  his  Secretary  of  State 
that  the  governments  of  Japan  and  Russia 
turned,  in  the  spring  of  1905,  with  a  view  to 
securing  assistance  in  bringing  the  costly  and 
bloody  conflict  in  Manchuria  to  an  end.  Both 
through  its  action  in  regard  to  Cuba  and  its 
action  in  regard  to  the  Russo-Japanese  War, 
to  say  nothing  of  its  consistent  attitude  toward 
the  government  and  the  people  of  China,  the 
United  States  has  won  the  regard  and  the 
respect  of  thoughtful  and  liberal-minded  men 
in  all  parts  of  the  globe.  It  is  such  acts  as 
these  which  promote  world  confidence  in  us 
and  assure  world  power  for  us. 

It  is  not  possible  to  touch  upon  these  topics 
without  some  mention  of  Mexico,  where  condi- 
tions are  extremely  difficult  and  very  perplex- 
ing. There  is  no  use  now  in  discussing  what 
might  have  been  done  three  years  ago  or  two 
years  ago  that  would  have  led  to  an  improve- 


AS  A   WORLD  POWER  6i 

ment  in  the  existing  situation.  The  undisputed 
facts  are  that  chaos  rules  in  Mexico,  that 
American  Hves  have  been  sacrificed  and  others 
are  in  danger,  and  that  much  property  belong- 
ing to  Americans  has  been  damaged  or  de- 
stroyed, and  more  of  it  is  still  threatened  with 
damage  or  destruction.  Is  it  quite  clear  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  have  no  duty 
whatever  in  regard  to  this  matter,  but  should 
merely  stand  aside  and  let  the  various  armed 
bands  or  Mexicans  kill  each  other  indefinitely, 
as  well  as  destroy  the  lives  and  property,  not 
only  of  Americans,  but  of  citizens  of  European 
nations  ?  Are  we  or  are  we  not  our  brothers' 
keepers  .?  These  questions  are  not  to  be  lightly 
answered,  for  anything  that  would  plunge  us 
into  war  with  the  Mexican  people,  or  anything 
that  might  possibly  lead  to  an  extension  of  our 
territory  or  increase  of  our  wealth  at  their  ex- 
pense, would  be  deplorable,  and  perhaps  dis- 
astrous to  us.  Nor  could  we  take  any  line  of 
action  that  would  expose  us  to  suspicion  in  the 
minds  of  other  American  republics  on  the  ground 
that  the  United  States,  as  an  Anglo-Saxon  and 
Anglo-Celtic  nation,  was  oppressing  a  Latin 
people  or  aggrandizing  itself  at  their  expense. 


62  THE  UNITED  STATES 

The  policy  which  most  commends  itself  to  my 
judgment,  if  a  task  similar  to  that  performed 
seventeen  years  ago  in  Cuba  ultimately  be- 
comes necessary,  is  to  communicate  our  plans 
and  policies  to  the  governments  of  the  other 
American  republics  and  to  ask  the  co-opera- 
tion of  at  least  some  of  them — for  example, 
that  of  Argentina,  Brazil,  Chili,  Uruguay,  and 
Peru — in  putting  into  effect  whatever  policies 
of  a  police  character  were  jointly  determined 
to  be  necessary  in  the  interest  of  civiUzation 
and  that  of  the  Mexican  people  themselves.  If 
it  be  objected  that  no  one  of  these  American 
republics  has  any  direct  interest  in  Mexico, 
the  answer  is  that  we  have  a  very  direct  inter- 
est in  having  them  have  a  sufficient  interest 
in  Mexico  to  protect  us  from  misunderstanding 
and  unfriendly  criticism  on  their  own  part. 

It  is  earnestly  to  be  hoped  that  the  Mexican 
people  will  speedily  find  some  way  of  restoring 
orderly  government  for  themselves,  but  it  must 
be  confessed  that  every  week  that  passes  makes 
the  prospect  of  this  seem  less  likely.  Of  course, 
it  is  not  possible  for  a  policeman  or  a  fireman 
to  attempt  to  settle  a  row  in  the  street  with- 
out running  some  risk  of  getting  hurt,  but  that 


AS  A   WORLD  POWER  63 

risk  would  be  reduced  to  a  minimum  if  the  con- 
fidence and  co-operation  of  a  half-dozen  other 
American  republics  were  secured  before  the 
task  was  undertaken  at  all.  Such  an  act  would, 
of  itself,  be  an  illustration  of  what  is  meant  by 
exercising  world  power.  It  would  illustrate  the 
value  of  bringing  other  free  and  enlightened 
peoples  to  our  side  to  perform  a  public-spirited 
act,  and  it  would  illustrate  and  emphasize  the 
moral  purpose  of  performing  that  act  in  the 
interest  of  Mexico  and  the  Mexican  people 
without  any  thought  or  purpose  of  self-aggran- 
dizement. It  would  give  a  new  and  generous 
interpretation  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 

Our  people  have  not  yet  appreciated  how 
much  we  need,  and  would  profit  by,  closer 
friendship  and  fuller  understanding  with  the 
peoples  of  the  other  American  republics.  Every 
one  of  the  efforts  now  being  made  to  bring 
those  peoples  nearer  to  us,  to  understand  more 
completely  their  point  of  view,  their  history, 
their  literature,  their  institutions,  and  every 
effort  to  break  down  the  barrier  of  language 
which  separates  us,  deserve  the  heartiest  sup- 
port. The  relation  we  seek  with  them  is  not  a 
relation  in  which  we  are  to  exercise  power,  but 


64  TEE  UNITED  STATES 

one  in  which  we  and  they  together  are  to  exer- 
cise an  influence  that  is  higher  and  better  than 
mere  power,  because  it  is  the  outgrowth  of  our 
common  devotion  to  democratic  institutions 
and  our  complete  and  sympathetic  understand- 
ing of  what  the  very  word  America  typifies 
and  signifies. 

There  are  other  things  which  indicate  a 
growth  of  such  world  power  in  the  hands  of 
the  United  States.  Robert  College  at  Con- 
stantinople on  the  banks  of  the  Bosporus,  and 
the  American  Protestant  College  at  Beirut  in 
Syria,  are  two  of  the  most  extraordinary  exam- 
ples of  American  influence  anjrwhere  in  the 
world.  Practically  every  leader  of  the  liberal 
movement  in  Bulgaria  has  been  educated  in 
Robert  College,  which  is  supported  entirely  by 
American  money,  and  the  most  enlightened 
young  Turks,  Arabs,  and  Greeks  are  to  be  found 
among  the  400  or  500  students  in  the  Syrian 
Protestant  College  at  Beirut.  These  institu- 
tions represent  the  New  England  college  trans- 
ferred to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  and 
to  the  banks  of  the  Bosporus,  and  they  are 
teaching,  not  only  the  usual  letters,  science, 
and  philosophy,  but  American  ideals,  American 


AS  A   WORLD  POWER  65 

thought,  American  Institutions  to  the  young 
men  who  are  shaping  or  are  going  to  shape  the 
civilization  of  the  Eastern  Mediterranean  coun- 
tries. 

A  great  many  of  our  European  friends  be- 
Heve,  as  I  myself  beheve,  that  a  concomitant 
and  necessary  element  of  international  peace  is 
industrial  peace,  and  there  has  recently  been 
sent  to  Europe  all  the  information  obtainable 
regarding  Mr.  Henry  Ford's  profit-sharing  un- 
dertaking at  Detroit,  and  also  that  regarding 
the  United  States  Steel  Corporation's  capital 
plan  for  caring  for  and  helping  its  workers. 
All  this  helps  to  build  up  world  power  for 
the  United  States.  This  is  what  is  meant  by 
the  peaceful  infiltration  of  ideas.  It  goes 
much  further  than  the  work  of  the  diploma- 
tist; it  works  away  down  under  the  surface  of 
life. 


V 
PATRIOTISM 


An   Address    delivered    before    the   Newport   Historical 
Society,  Newport,  R.  I.,  August  i6,  1915 


PATRIOTISM 

A  society  like  this — one  of  many  score,  many 
hundred,  in  this  country  and  in  other  lands — is 
a  very  hearthstone  of  patriotism.  It  is  by 
labors  and  by  sacrifices  such  as  yours  that 
careful,  affectionate,  and  accurate  record  is 
made  of  men  and  women,  of  happenings,  of 
events,  of  undertakings,  of  movements  of 
opinion  and  of  action  that  are  worth  remember- 
ing. Your  Society  and  other  societies  like- 
minded  bring  these  records  together,  and  make 
of  them  a  hearthstone  on  which  the  fire  of  pa- 
triotism begins  to  burn;  for  the  beginning  of 
patriotism  is  love  of  home  and  all  that  home 
means,  and  through  it  comes  the  entering  into 
the  hopes  and  ideals  and  purposes  of  that  larger 
home  which  constitutes  our  country. 

Perhaps   you   have   not    all   reflected   upon 

what  this  thing  called  patriotism  is  and  how 

recently  it  has  come  into  the  history  of  man. 

There  was  nothing  corresponding  to  what  we 

mean  by  patriotism  in  the  older  world.     There 

was  loyalty  to  race;  there  was  something  ap- 

69 


70  PATRIOTISM 

proaching  patriotism,  perhaps,  in  the  life  of  the 
Greek  or  Roman  city;  there  was  loyalty  to  rul- 
ing monarchs  or  dynasties;  there  was  pride  of 
origin  or  opinion;  but  so  long  as  the  nations  of 
Europe  and  America  were  in  the  making,  so 
long  as  life  was  fluid,  and  men  were  moving 
uneasily  and  rapidly  over  the  face  of  the  earth, 
without  fixed  habitat  or  permanent  institutions, 
there  was  nothing  corresponding  to  what  we 
know  as  patriotism.  Nor  is  patriotism  com- 
patible with  any  ambition  for  world-empire  or 
dominion.  So  long  as  there  was  hope  of  bring- 
ing the  whole  world  under  the  dominion  of  a 
single  form  of  religion  or  under  the  control  of 
a  single  governing  power — so  long  as  those 
dreams  flitted  before  the  eyes  and  minds  of 
men — there  was  nothing  corresponding  to  what 
we  know  as  patriotism. 

Patriotism  began  to  rise  when  the  modern 
nations  took  on  their  form;  when  each  group 
of  men  found  itself  in  a  separate  and  substan- 
tially fixed  habitat;  when  unity  of  language 
began  to  develop;  when  literature  sprang  up  on 
the  wings  of  language;  when  institutions  and 
achievements  began  to  appear  and  to  organize 
themselves;  and  when  men  began  to  convene 


PATRIOTISM  71 

and  to  feel  the  need  of  a  social  and  political  life 
that  had  an  end  or  a  purpose  of  its  own  which 
they  could  understand  and  teach  to  their  chil- 
dren. When  there  was  something  that  could 
be  handed  down,  some  theory  of  hfe,  some  the- 
ory of  social  relationship,  some  theory  of  the 
status  which  each  man  bears  to  his  fellow,  then 
there  began  to  emerge  the  materials  out  of 
which  patriotism  is  made. 

But  only  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  more 
or  less,  the  word  had  a  very  sinister  and  ugly 
meaning.  I  remember  once  reading  in  the 
letters  of  Horace  Walpole  the  statement  that 
the  most  helpful  declaration  that  could  be 
made  upon  the  hustings  in  England,  was  that 
the  speaker  was  not  then  and  never  had  been 
a  patriot.  For  in  the  seventeenth  century  and 
in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth,  the  word 
patriot  was  almost  synonymous  with  dis- 
turber, with  revolutionist — almost  synony- 
mous with  anarchist,  as  we  use  the  term  so 
frequently,  and  often  so  incorrectly,  to-day. 

Later,  particularly  in  connection  with  the 
beginning  of  the  life  of  this  nation,  the  words 
"patriot"  and  "patriotism"  began  to  take  on 
a  healthier,  a   more  sympathetic,  and   a  finer 


72  PATRIOTISM 

meaning,  and  those  healthier,  more  sympa- 
thetic, and  finer  meanings  have  attached  them- 
selves to  these  words,  until  now  the  idea  they 
convey  and  represent  is  one  to  which  we  are 
all  glad  to  do  honor. 

A  patriot  is  a  man  who  stands  to  his  country 
in  the  relation  of  a  father  to  his  child.  He 
loves  it;  he  cares  for  it;  he  makes  sacrifices  for 
it;  he  fights  for  it;  he  serves  it;  he  tries  to  shape 
its  course  of  thought  and  action,  that  it  may 
most  perfectly  adhere  to  its  purpose  and  its 
ideal. 

We  do  not  know — and  no  history,  no  sci- 
ence, no  philosophy  is  yet  wise  enough  fully 
to  Instruct  us — the  significance  and  meaning  of 
each  of  the  great  civilizations  of  the  modern 
world;  but  despite  the  present  desperate  and 
fearful  clash  of  arms,  we  may  be  sure  that 
there  is  a  place  for  each  one  of  them — that  each 
serves  some  purpose,  makes  some  contribution, 
casts  some  reflection  from  the  facet  of  Its  racial 
nature  and  national  organization.  Some  pur- 
pose is  fulfilled  by  each  one  of  them,  and  each 
contributes  Its  single  beam,  to  help  make  the 
full,  white  light  of  civilization.  We  may  be 
certain  that  to  strike  out  from  modern  Hfe  any 


PATRIOTISM  73 

one  of  the  great  national  elements  which  enter 
into  it  would  be  to  make  it  poorer,  and  would 
be  to  disarrange  and  to  throw  out  of  harmony 
the  ever-moving  plan  of  that  civilization  which 
has  been  built  up  by  such  hard  and  long  work 
over  so  many  centuries.  Therefore  we  must 
have  a  care  that  we  do  not  define  patriotism  as 
a  cynic  once  defined  it,  as  dislike  of  another 
country  masked  in  the  guise  of  love  for  our 
own. 

There  is  no  necessary  conflict  in  the  mind 
of  the  wise,  well-instructed  patriot,  between 
the  cause  and  purpose  and  aim  of  his  nation 
and  the  cause  and  purpose  and  aim  of  the 
whole  great  group  and  family  of  nations.  A 
patriot  is  not  a  termagant;  he  is  not  a  destroyer 
of  the  peace;  he  is  not  one  who  treats  with 
contempt  or  dislike  his  fellow  who  speaks 
another  tongue  or  who  owes  allegiance  to 
another  flag  or  who  loves  another  literature; 
but  he  is  one  who  understands  and  appreciates 
how  these  various  aspects  of  civilized  life  can 
better  serve  the  common  purpose  by  better 
serving  each  its  own. 

If  a  man  or  a  woman  is  to  rise  to  a  true  ap- 
preciation of  patriotism  and  wishes  to  be  a 


74  PATRIOTISM 

real  patriot,  then  he  or  she  must  reflect  upon 
the  purpose  of  organized  community  life.  I 
think  it  was  Bishop  Berkeley — whose  name  is 
so  closely  associated  with  this  colony  and  this 
settlement — who  said  in  substance  that  those 
who  never  reflect  upon  the  great  problems  of 
the  end  and  aim  and  purpose  of  life  might  be 
suitable  to  belong  to  a  colony  of  industrious 
animals,  but  never  could  rise  to  the  height  of 
being  men  and  women. 

Instead  of  rhetoric,  a  patriot  needs  philoso- 
phy; instead  of  noisy  and  tumultuous  expres- 
sion of  high  feeling,  he  needs  serious  purpose, 
insight  into  the  significance  of  his  own  country, 
a  knowledge  of  its  history,  of  its  great  person- 
alities, of  its  policies,  of  its  achievements,  and 
above  all,  a  knowledge  of  its  aim.  He  must 
ask  himself  not  only,  **From  what  origin  and 
by  what  steps  has  it  come?"  but  more  insis- 
tently and  more  emphatically,  "Toward  what 
end  and  toward  what  purpose  is  it  moving .? 
What  is  the  reason  of  it  all  V 

We  Americans  are  fortunate  above  all  peo- 
ples, in  that  those  searching  questions  have 
been  answered  for  us  in  two  great  classic  docu- 
ments, written  in  language  so  simple  that  the 


PATRIOTISM  75 

mass  of  the  people  can  read  and  understand 
them — documents  which  should  be  famiHar, 
word  by  word,  sentence  by  sentence,  para- 
graph by  paragraph,  to  every  reflecting  and 
educated  American.  I  mean,  of  course,  George 
Washington's  Farewell  Address,  and  the  great 
Second  Inaugural  Address  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
When  George  Washington  was  asked  to  per- 
mit his  name  to  be  used  for  the  third  time  as 
candidate  for  the  presidency,  he  declined  in  a 
noteworthy  document,  addressed  to  his  fellow 
citizens.  He  not  only  set  forth  the  reasons — 
the  personal  reasons — which  actuated  his  de- 
clination of  a  third  term  as  President,  but  he 
went  further,  and  expounded  and  commended 
to  his  countrymen  the  principles  of  the  country 
whose  father  he  truly  was.  That  document — 
one  of  the  most  precious  in  American  history 
or  American  literature — should  be  a  veritable 
guide-book  for  the  American  patriot.  And 
then,  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century  later, 
when  the  epoch-making  civil  struggle  was  near- 
ing  its  end,  the  great  heart  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
poured  itself  out  in  words  whose  simple,  com- 
pelling eloquence  have  rarely  been  equalled, 
when  he  for  the  second  time  ascended  the  steps 


76  PATRIOTISM 

of  the  Capitol  to  take  the  oath  of  office  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  He,  too,  from  an- 
other point  of  view,  but  in  no  less  practical 
ways  and  with  no  less  generous  purpose, 
pressed  home  upon  his  countrymen  the  prin- 
ciples to  which  their  loyalty  was  due. 

The  American  patriot  will  inform  himself 
upon  those  two  great  documents.  He  will  like 
to  read  them,  to  quote  them,  to  think  upon 
them,  to  turn  to  them  and  to  their  principles, 
to  seek  their  instruction  in  determining  his  own 
position  in  regard  to  the  thousand  and  one 
practical  questions  of  the  moment,  which  are 
simply  the  old  questions  of  human  ambition, 
human  greed,  and  human  folly,  dressing  them- 
selves up  in  new  forms,  and  joining  the  never- 
ending  procession  of  progress  toward  human 
excellence,  that  goes  to  make  up  human  his- 
tory. 

The  Farewell  Address  of  Washington,  and 
the  Second  Inaugural  of  Lincoln,  are  for  the 
American  a  corner-stone  upon  which  to  build  a 
sure  and  abiding  structure  of  true  patriotism. 

Our  country  is  unique,  not  as  we  so  often 
think  and  say  because  of  its  size,  not  because 
of  its  population,  not  because  of  its  wealth,  not 


PATRIOTISM  77 

because  of  its  variety  of  products  and  climates, 
not  because  of  its  temperaments  and  racial 
elements — though  they  all  enter  into  its  great- 
ness, and  will  form  subjects  for  the  future  his- 
torian to  analyze  and  interpret — but  it  is  unique 
in  that  we  have  managed  for  now  more  than  a 
century  and  a  quarter,  to  build  into  permanence 
principles  of  government  and  of  life  which  had 
been  the  ideal  of  dreamers  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years.  Very  few  of  those  dreamers 
ever  supposed  that  in  the  nineteenth  and  twen- 
tieth centuries  there  would  arise  on  this  earth 
a  great  nation,  built  upon  those  principles, 
dedicated  to  them,  and  successfully  exemplify- 
ing their  operation  and  practice  over  this  amaz- 
ing extent  of  territory.  No  one  would  have 
supposed  this  to  be  possible. 

We  need  not  stop  to  dwell  upon  our  short- 
comings; we  need  not  stop  to  analyze  and  to 
explain  our  feelings  of  difficulty  and  of  doubt 
or  to  make  Hsts  of  the  things  we  should  like  to 
do,  but  have  not  done.  All  that  is  known  and 
admitted  by  us,  by  our  friends,  and  by  our 
critics;  but  at  a  moment  like  this,  when  the 
whole  world  appears  to  be  in  a  state  of  flux, 
when  all  old  standards  seem  to  be  thrown  to 


78  PATRIOTISM 

the  winds,  it  is  worth  while  to  dwell  upon  the 
permanent  and  progressive  forward  movement 
in  American  life,  and  to  take  account  and 
make  measure  of  its  achievements  and  its  tri- 
umphs. 

This  country  is,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  the  keeper 
of  the  conscience  of  democracy.  There  may  be 
nations — we  know  there  are  nations  of  the  first 
rank — not  committed  as  we  are  to  the  demo- 
cratic principle.  We  need  find  no  fault  with 
them  for  preferring,  temporarily  at  least,  some 
other  form  of  social  and  political  organization; 
but  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  the  keep- 
ers of  the  democratic  conscience  of  the  world. 
We  are  the  keepers  of  the  open  door  of  oppor- 
tunity in  democracy;  and  we  are  the  keepers 
of  the  great  principle  of  federation  as  a  means 
of  securing  domestic  freedom  and  national 
unity,  and  of  permitting  liberty  under  law  in 
ways  with  which  we  have  now  been  familiar 
for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half. 

The  greatest  probleYn  of  men  in  all  history 
has  been  the  question  how  to  secure  both  gov- 
ernment and  liberty.  How  to  preserve  order 
without  suppression  of  the  individual,  how  to 
promote  the  common  good  without  depriving 


PATRIOTISM  79 

the  individual  of  initiative,  how  to  weld  men 
into  a  mass,  into  a  new  and  higher  order,  with- 
out destroying  personal  identity — that  problem 
in  its  most  serious  sense  is  ours. 

The  true  American  patriot  will  never  permit 
himself  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  line  be- 
tween government  and  liberty  is  the  line  upon 
which  he  must  keep  his  eye,  and  the  line  toward 
which  he  must  hew,  let  the  chips  fall  where 
they  will. 

If  all  individual  initiative  be  transferred  to 
the  realm  of  government,  we  have  no  oppor- 
tunity for  that  individual  life  which  hgs  been 
the  glory  of  our  modern  world.  If  we  transfer 
all  the  fundamental  elements  of  a  well-ordered 
government  over  to  the  realm  of  liberty,  we 
have  national  dissolution  and  poHtical  death. 
The  American  patriot,  keeping  his  heart  open 
and  his  mind  free  from  prejudice,  seeking 
friendships  everywhere  in  this  world  and  en- 
mities nowhere,  keeping  his  eye  fixed  on  this 
line  between  government  and  liberty,  will  ask 
himself  how,  as  one  of  the  keepers  of  the  demo- 
cratic conscience,  can  he  act  in  a  given  crisis, 
in  the  presence  of  a  given  problem,  before  a 
given  issue — how  can  he  act,  my  friends,  so  as 


8o  PATRIOTISM 

to  protect  the  aim  and  the  ideals  of  the  Ameri- 
can RepubHc  ? 

He  is  a  poor  American  who  is  without  a  pas- 
sionate love  of  home;  who  does  not  feel  a  pecu- 
liar drawing  at  the  heart  and  a  choking  of  the 
voice  when  his  mind  goes  back  in  after-years 
to  the  home  where  his  first  associations  were 
made,  where  his  father  and  mother  lived,  where 
his  childhood  friends  and  associates,  his  school- 
teachers and  schoolmates  dwelt,  where  he  got 
his  first  outlook  on  life  and  began  to  stretch 
his  wings  and  try  to  fly.  No  temporary  abid- 
ing-place, no  working-place  or  office  or  house 
can  ever  be  substituted  for  the  home  in  the 
heart  of  the  true  patriot.  Just  so  the  patriot's 
feeling  for  his  fafherland  or  motherland  is  the 
feeling  he  has  for  the  nation  to  which  he  be- 
longs, the  ideal  to  which  he  owes  allegiance, 
the  language  he  speaks,  the  literature  he  loves, 
and  the  law  that  determines  the  patriot's  rela- 
tion to  all  of  these — his  intelligence,  reflections, 
and  emotions — the  relation  of  the  individual  to 
his  larger  home. 

It  is  out  of  the  home  that  the  nation  is  built. 
It  is  out  of  the  home's  purposes  and  ideals  that 
the  nation  gains  aim  and  substance,  and  it  is 


PATRIOTISM  8 1 

in  the  home  that  the  controlHng  moral  and  in- 
tellectual principles  that  shape  government  and 
organization  take  form  and  gain  their  truest 
significance.  There  is  no  subject  fuller  of 
meaning  than  this  age-old  subject  of  a  man's 
relation  to  his  fathers.  Now  that  we  have 
learned  in  these  modern  days  to  cast  it  into 
the  form  of  this  patriotism  which  I  am  trying 
briefly  to  describe,  now  that  we  have  learned 
to  see  it  in  the  moral  and  intellectual  and  relig- 
ious relation,  we  can  look  forward  to  the  day 
when  we  shall  learn  to  see  in  it  no  place  for 
enmity,  national  or  international.  We  may 
justly  hope  to  look  out  upon  that  future  day, 
when  the  patriots  of  every  nation  will  find  their 
greatest  satisfaction  in  co-operating  and  com- 
bining toward  the  perfection  of  the  great  hu- 
manitarian ideal  throughout  the  world. 

We  dare  not  close  our  eyes  in  pessimism  be- 
cause to-day  we  hear  the  thunder  of  guns  and 
the  cries  of  the  wounded  and  the  dying.  Ter- 
rible as  that  is,  terrible  as  the  reason  for  it  is,  I 
beg  you  to  believe  that  it  is  only  an  episode — a 
dismal,  tragic  episode,  but  an  episode — in  the 
forward  march  of  an  idea  and  a  purpose  which 
no  armaments  can  permanently  check.     This 


82  PATRIOTISM 

is  not  a  purposeless  world.  This  is  not  a  ball, 
plunging  through  space,  with  no  orbit,  subject 
to  no  law  of  control,  existing  as  part  of  no  sys- 
tem, serving  no  purpose.  The  physicist  tells 
us  that  if  we  disturb  in  the  very  slightest  degree 
any  physical  element  in  the  universe,  we  affect 
its  remotest  circumference.  What  of  the  hu- 
man elements  .^  What  of  the  importance  and 
the  balance  which  they  have,  the  ideas,  the 
feelings,  and  the  acts  of  will  which  are  the  em- 
bodiments of  ideas,  that  are  carried  forward 
into  the  making  of  institutions  .?  Those  are  the 
great  things  in  history.  We  see  them  spring 
into  life  and  enter  one  nation  after  another. 

There  is  a  place  for  the  Oriental;  there  is  a 
place  for  the  Occidental;  there  is  a  place  for  the 
European;  there  is  a  place  for  the  American; 
just  as  there  is  a  place  in  the  great  stout  strand 
that  binds  the  ship  to  the  boat  that  tows  it, 
for  every  one  of  the  little  threads  that  wound 
together  make  it  what  it  is.  Take  that  great 
strand  apart  and  a  child  could  snap  each 
thread.  Wind  them  tight  together  so  that 
every  one  supports  the  other,  and  it  would 
take  a  superman  to  tear  that  rope  apart. 

This  problem  of  institution  building — whether 


PATRIOTISM  ?>2> 

by  the  people  of  one  nation  or  by  the  peoples 
of  all  nations  of  the  world  together — is  the  one 
that  will  be  supremely  important  when  the 
curtain  falls  upon  the  tragedy  that  now  moves 
its  slow  course  to  the  pain  and  distress  and 
grief  of  every  patriot  in  every  land. 


VI 
THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 


An  Address  delivered  at  the  One  Hundred  and  Forty- 
Seventh  Annual  Banquet  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
November  i8,  1915 


THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 

Four  years  ago  I  had  the  privilege  of  speak- 
ing in  this  presence.  At  that  time  I  chose  as 
my  subject,  "Business  and  Politics."  We  were 
then  approaching  the  end  of  a  presidential 
term  and  facing  a  national  election;  we  were 
concerned,  gravely  concerned,  with  domestic 
problems,  particularly  with  those  manifold  and 
important  questions  which  arise  out  of  the 
relations  between  government  and  business. 
To-night  I  have  chosen  as  the  topic  on  which 
to  speak  to  you,  quite  informally  and  briefly, 
"The  Changed  Outlook";  for  in  the  interval 
of  those  four  years  there  has  been  a  revolution 
in  our  thinking  and  a  complete  change  in  the 
prospect  that  opens  out  before  us.  Once  again 
we  are  approaching  the  end  of  a  presidential 
term  and  once  again  we  are  facing  a  national 
election,  but  the  outlook  to-day  is  strangely 
and  solemnly  different  from  what  it  was  four 
years  ago. 

It  is  not  easy  for  one  who  lives  in  the  midst 
of  onrushing  events  to  judge  calmly  and  accu- 

87 


88  THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 

rately  either  of  their  significance  or  of  their 
direction.  The  man  who  is  borne  helplessly 
down-stream  by  a  roaring  torrent  has  little 
opportunity  to  observe  the  foliage  that  may 
adorn  the  banks,  or  to  determine  with  certainty 
whether  he  is  to  be  dashed  to  pieces  by  the 
cataract  of  Niagara  or  borne  harmlessly  into 
the  peaceful  waters  of  a  mountain  lake.  So  it 
is  with  ourselves.  The  wild  onrush  of  events 
in  a  world  at  war;  the  sudden  and  startling 
changes  in  finance,  in  commerce,  in  industry; 
the  quick  movement  of  armies  and  of  navies 
by  which  some  of  the  hopes  and  ambitions  of 
two  generations  are  gratified;  the  dazed  per- 
plexity of  the  world's  most  trusted  leaders — 
all  these  are  characteristic  of  the  days  through 
which  we  are  living. 

When  the  midsummer  sun  set  on  the  eve- 
ning of  Friday,  July  31,  1914,  it  set  upon  a 
world  upon  which  it  was  never  to  rise  again. 
Never  again  was  that  sun  to  rise  upon  the 
same  world.  As  if  by  magic,  transportation 
and  communication  stopped;  the  wells  of  credit 
were  dried  up;  commerce  and  industry  were 
brought  to  a  standstill;  men  leaped  to  arms 
and   to   the   assembling   of  the   devilishly   in- 


THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK  89 

genious  instruments  of  destruction;  science 
which  had  been  caring  for  the  health,  the  com- 
fort, and  the  prosperity  of  man  was  instantly 
bent  with  amazing  ingenuity  and  skill  to  the 
wholesale  slaughter  of  human  beings  and  to 
the  destruction  and  waste  of  property  on  a 
scale  unprecedented  in  all  recorded  history. 
This  is  neither  the  time  nor  the  place  to  inquire 
why  these  strange  and  startling  things  took 
place.  It  is  sufficient  to  observe  that  they  did 
take  place  and  that  the  whole  world  order  was 
changed  in  a  night. 

The  peoples  who  are  engaged  in  this  titanic 
struggle  are  not  untamed  barbarians  or  wild 
Indians  of  the  virgin  forest.  They  are  the 
best-trained  and  most  highly  educated  peoples 
in  the  world.  They  have  had  every  advantage 
that  schools  and  universities  can  offer,  and 
they  have  been  associated  for  generations  with 
literature  and  science  and  art  and  everything 
that  is  fine  and  splendid  in  what  we  call  civili- 
zation. What  we  now  know,  even  those  of  us 
who  were  most  loath  to  believe  it,  is  that  under 
this  thin  veneer  of  civilization  the  elementary 
human  passions  of  jealousy,  envy,  hatred,  and 
malice  were   so  lightly   confined   that   at  the 


90  THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 

touch  of  a  magic  spring  they  burst  forth  to 
overwhelm  everything  that  seems  to  make  life 
worth  living.  Moreover,  it  is  now  so  plain 
that  even  the  dullest  can  see  that  the  nations 
of  Europe  had  been  psychologically,  politically, 
and  even  strategetically,  at  war  for  many  years. 
In  the  guise  of  an  armed  peace  they  were  really 
in  conflict,  and  jealousy,  suspicion,  and  in- 
trigue were  abroad  on  every  hand.  Plans  of 
instant  mobilization  and  of  quick  attack  were 
all  in  readiness,  and  the  more  ardent  spirits 
were  tugging  hard  at  the  bonds  of  convention- 
ality that  restrained  them  from  overt  acts. 
Europe  had  been  at  war  for  years.  What  hap- 
pened on  August  I,  1914,  was  that  the  cur- 
tain was  lifted  so  that  all  men  might  see;  and 
the  physical  conflict  of  armies  and  navies  fol- 
lowed as  a  final  and  dramatic  incident  in  a 
contest  which  was  on  that  day  made  evident, 
but  which  was  not  on  that  day  begun. 

If  I  read  history  aright,  only  once  before  since 
the  beginning  of  man's  records  has  any  similar 
catastrophe  occurred  in  the  Western  world. 
With  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire  and 
the  Inrush  of  the  barbarian  hordes  from  the 
forests  and  plains  of  the  North  there  was  a 


THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK  91 

wiping  out  of  Greek  and  Roman  civilization 
and  of  their  evidences  that  was  as  complete  as 
it  was  terrible.  From  that  day  to  this  there 
has  been  no  similar  cataclysm  in  Europe. 
There  have  been  wars,  many  and  severe. 
There  have  been  revolutions  devastating  and 
terrible.  There  has  been  the  spectacle  of  the 
great  Napoleon  defying  the  whole  of  Europe, 
but  finally  succumbing  to  the  power  of  his  ad- 
versaries. But  not  since  the  break-up  of 
Roman  civilization  has  the  world  seen  anything 
that  can  compare  with  what  is  now  going  on 
before  our  eyes.  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and 
Australia  are  being  tramped  by  contending 
armies  or  are  held  in  the  grip  of  the  laws  of 
war. 

It  is  idle  to  say,  quite  idle  to  say,  that  the 
American  people  are  on  the  other  side  of  the 
world  and  that  these  clashings  and  crashings 
are  no  concern  of  theirs.  Ask  the  cotton 
grower  in  the  South,  or  the  copper  miner  in  the 
far  West,  or  the  lumberman  on  Puget  Sound, 
or  the  shipper  in  New  York,  in  Baltimore,  or 
New  Orleans,  or  the  banker  in  Wall  Street,  in 
State  Street,  or  in  La  Salle  Street,  whether  he 
knows  that  there  is  a  war  in  Europe,  and  get 


92  THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 

his  answer.  Ask  the  student  of  international 
law,  or  the  expounder  of  political  ethics  and 
the  sanctity  of  treaties,  or  the  devoted  believer 
in  civil  liberty,  whether  the  United  States  has 
any  interest  in  this  conflict,  and  get  his  answer ! 

It  is  no  longer  possible  for  the  United  States, 
ostrich-like,  to  plunge  its  head  into  the  sands 
of  a  supposed  isolation  and  to  assume  that  its 
policies,  its  influences,  and  its  ideals  are  not 
part  of  the  wider  world.  The  outlook  has 
wholly  changed.  The  future,  and  in  particu- 
lar the  immediate  future,  is  charged  with  seri- 
ous international  interest  and  with  heavy  in- 
ternational responsibiHty.  Of  this  interest  we 
cannot  divest  ourselves,  and  of  this  responsi- 
bility we  dare  not,  without  proving  false  to 
our  trust  as  keepers  of  the  faith  in  civil  liberty 
as  the  highest  political  aim  and  object  of 
mankind. 

There  are  reasons,  good  and  suflRcient  and 
easily  understood  by  the  reader  of  history,  why 
America's  interest  in  international  conditions 
is  now  much  greater  and  much  more  important 
than  ever  before.  In  the  history  of  peoples,  it 
is  a  well-known  fact  that  internal  national  de- 
velopment must  precede  international  influence 


THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK  93 

and  direction.  Not  until  a  nation  has  unified 
itself,  perfected  reasonably  well  its  instruments 
of  government  and  become  conscious  of  an 
ideal  and  of  a  mission  which  that  ideal  serves, 
can  it  be  ready  to  take  its  place  at  the  council 
table  of  nations  and  to  exercise  a  shaping  in- 
fluence in  the  formulation  and  carrying  out 
of  world  policies.  That  time  has  now  come  in 
the  history  of  the  United  States.  We  have  ex- 
panded across  the  continent,  and  have  settled 
and  developed  the  waste  places.  We  have  es- 
tablished, after  a  long  debate,  and  by  an 
epoch-making  military  struggle,  the  unity  of 
the  nation  and  the  supremacy  of  the  national 
ideal.  We  have  developed  great  systems  of 
transportation  and  manifold  industries,  and  we 
have  accumulated  vast  national  wealth.  We 
have  made  creditable  contributions  to  science, 
to  literature,  and  to  the  arts.  The  question 
now  to  press  upon  ourselves  is.  Are  we  ready 
and  equipped  to  bear  the  responsibilities  that 
the  close  of  this  war  will  place  upon  the  Ameri- 
can people  ^.     Are  we  prepared  .? 

In  one  of  the  noblest  orations  of  antiquity 
Pericles  used  these  words  in  speaking  to  his 
fellow  citizens  of  the  Athenians  who  had  died 


94  THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 

in  the  war  with  Sparta:  ''The  whole  earth  is 
the  sepulchre  of  famous  men;  and  their  glory 
is  not  graven  only  on  stone  over  their  native 
earth,  but  Hves  on  far  away,  without  visible 
symbol,  woven  into  the  stuff  of  other  men's 
lives.  For  you  it  now  remains  to  rival  what 
they  have  done,  and,  knowing  the  secret  of 
happiness  to  be  freedom  and  the  secret  of  free- 
dom to  be  a  brave  heart,  squarely  to  face  the 
war  and  all  its  perils."  Surely  these  sonorous 
words  sounding  across  the  centuries  seem  al- 
most to  have  been  meant  for  our  ears  to  hear. 
We  are  to  weave  our  lives,  our  aspirations,  and 
our  ideals  into  the  stuff  of  other  men's  lives; 
we  are  to  remember  that  the  secret  of  happi- 
ness is  freedom  and  that  the  secret  of  freedom 
is  a  brave  heart,  and  then  we  are  squarely  to 
face  this  war  and  all  that  it  brings  in  its  train. 
There  is  much  earnest  speech  among  us  in 
regard  to  national  preparedness,  and  it  is  urged 
by  many  and  influential  voices  that  we  must 
beware  lest  the  calamity  that  fell  so  suddenly 
upon  Europe  should  be  forced  against  our  wish 
or  will  upon  us.  Surely  we  must  reckon  with 
facts  as  they  are,  and  not  as  we  would  wish 
them  to  be.     We  may  turn  our  faces  to  the 


THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK  95 

stars,  but  we  must  have  a  care  to  keep  our  feet 
on  the  firm  ground.  Nevertheless,  there  Is  a 
more  serious  and  a  more  important  aspect  of 
national  preparedness  that  has  not  yet  been 
so  much  dwelt  upon.  Our  chiefest  task  is  to 
prepare  our  hearts  and  our  minds  to  do  our 
full  duty  as  Americans  to  bind  up  the  wounds 
of  a  stricken  world  and  to  lead  the  way  to  that 
new  construction  of  the  overturned  political 
fabric  which,  if  it  is  to  endure,  can  rest  upon 
no  other  principles  than  those  of  democracy, 
of  freedom,  of  civil  liberty,  of  international  re- 
sponsibility and  honor,  to  which  we  profess 
such  earnest  allegiance  and  through  faith  in 
which  our  nation  has  grown  great. 

It  is  true  of  nations,  as  of  men,  that  we  are 
our  brothers'  keepers.  Their  interests  are  in- 
creasingly our  interests,  and  our  interests  are 
increasingly  theirs.  We  have  no  wish  or  will 
to  interfere  with  problems  that  belong  to 
Europe  alone;  but  surely  non-interference  does 
not  mean  absence  of  interest  in  them  or  an 
absence  of  influence  upon  them  or  over  them. 
In  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  in  the  policy  of  the 
Open  Door,  and  in  the  wide-spread  objection  to 
Oriental  immigration,  we  have  given  concrete 


96  THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 

evidences  of  a  developed  and  developing  inter- 
national view-point  and  international  policy. 
We  must,  by  taking  counsel  together,  by  study 
and  by  reflection,  prepare  ourselves  to  say  to 
a  listening  world  what  our  international  policy 
is  and  what  it  is  to  be;  what  influence  we  aim 
to  exert  and  why,  and  what  ideals  we  propose 
to  hold  aloft  in  the  hope  that  they  may  guide 
and  help  other  peoples. 

Before  we  can  hope  to  influence  others  we 
must  be  sure  of  ourselves.  We  must  without 
delay  undertake  the  better  conservation  and 
organization  of  our  own  national  resources  of 
every  kind.  We  must  make  it  plain  that,  by 
voluntary  effort  and  without  sacrificing  our 
traditional  American  principles  to  the  demands 
of  a  bureaucratic  organization,  we  too  can  effec- 
tively mobilize  the  industrial  resources  of  a 
great  nation.  It  is  for  American  democracy  to 
prove  that  it  can  secure  the  highest  type  of 
national  preparedness  and  the  highest  type  of 
national  effectiveness  without  ceasing  to  be 
either  American  or  democratic.  In  the  recently 
established  Trade  Commission  and  in  the  TariflT 
Commission,  whose  quick  establishment  is  so 
strongly  supported,  we  shall  have  governmental 


TEE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK  97 

instrumentalities  which  might  readily  be  made 
the  centre  for  co-operative  industrial  effort  and 
for  the  more  complete  equipment  of  this  nation 
in  respect  to  all  the  great  basic  industries. 
The  problem  of  labor  must  be  faced  with 
courage,  with  frankness,  and  with  sympathy; 
for  industrial  peace  and  satisfaction  is  as  neces- 
sary a  prerequisite  of  international  peace  and 
contentment  as  it  is  of  national  security  and 
happiness. 

Moreover,  it  behooves  us  to  cultivate  a  be- 
coming national  modesty.  It  was  Mr.  Bryce 
who  pointed  out  to  us  in  the  American  Com- 
monwealth that  the  enormous  force  of  public 
opinion  is  a  danger,  a  danger  to  the  people 
themselves  as  well  as  to  their  leaders,  because 
it  fills  them  with  an  undue  confidence  in  their 
own  wisdom,  their  own  virtue,  and  their  own 
freedom.  In  order  to  guard  ourselves  against 
the  vice  of  self-complacency  we  must  constantly 
re-examine  and  restate  our  moral  and  our 
political  ideals,  and  we  must  not  fail  to  give 
due  weight  to  the  moral  and  political  ideals  of 
other  people. 

The  world  mission  that  we  might  have  waited 
for  through   another  centuiy  has  come  to  us 


98  THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 

to-day  from  the  hand  of  fate.  We  can  remain 
true  to  the  injunction  of  Washington  that  we 
steer  clear  of  permanent  alliances  with  any 
portion  of  the  foreign  world,  and  yet  do  our 
full  international  duty;  for  what  we  should 
seek  is  not  an  alliance,  entangling  or  otherwise, 
with  any  portion  of  the  foreign  world,  but 
rather  relations  with  the  whole  of  that  world 
and  with  every  part  of  it,  in  order  that  in  a 
spirit  of  friendship  and  good  temper  and  con- 
structive statesmanship  we  may  do  our  full 
share  in  raising  that  world  to  a  higher  plane. 

No  one  dares  predict  just  what  the  end  of  this 
world  war  will  be  or  when  that  end  will  come. 
It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  this  cataclysm 
marks  the  end  of  centuries  of  progress,  and  it 
is  possible  that  man  in  1914  crossed  over  the 
watershed  of  civilization  and  is  now  to  descend 
on  the  other  side  toward  steadily  growing  bar- 
barism and  the  steadily  extending  rule  of  force. 
That  I  say  is  possible;  but  I  for  one  am  an  un- 
conquerable optimist.  I  prefer  to  read  history 
differently  and  to  see  in  this  appalling  catastro- 
phe what  the  Greek  called  a  katharsis,  or  cleans- 
ing of  the  spirit.  I  prefer  to  think  of  ^t  as  his- 
tory's way  of  teaching  beyond  peradventure  or 


THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK  99 

dispute  the  fallacy  and  the  folly  of  the  old 
ways  and  the  old  policies.  Surely  that  strug- 
gle for  the  balance  of  power  which  the  historian 
Stubbs  described  as  the  principle  which  gives 
unity  to  the  plot  of  modern  history — surely 
that  struggle  has  proved  its  futility.  Surely 
we  can  see  the  vanity  of  Ententes  and  Alliances 
and  of  a  division  of  the  world  into  heavily 
armed  camps,  each  waiting  for  an  opportunity 
or  for  an  excuse  to  pounce  upon  the  other. 

A  democratic  federated  people  can  teach  the 
world  democracy  and  the  use  of  the  federative 
principle.  A  people  devoted  to  civil  liberty 
and  to  international  honor,  no  less  lightly  held 
than  the  honor  of  an  individual — that  people 
can  teach  the  world  the  foundations  upon 
which  to  rebuild  the  shattered  fabric  of  inter- 
national law  and  of  broken  treaties. 

The  outlook  before  the  people  of  the  United 
States  has  changed.  When  Joseph  Chamber- 
lain returned  from  South  Africa  his  message  to 
the  people  of  Great  Britain  was:  "You  must 
learn  to  think  imperially."  The  message  which 
any  American  alive  to  the  world's  situation  to- 
day must  bring  to  his  fellow  citizens  is,  you 
must  learn  to  think  internationally !     Domestic 


loo  THE  CHANGED  OUTLOOK 

policies  and  problems  are  perhaps  no  less  im- 
portant than  they  have  been  in  the  past,  but 
by  their  side  and  for  the  immediate  future  sur- 
passing them  in  interest  and  in  importance  are 
the  international  problems  and  the  international 
policies  of  the  people  of  the  United  States.  For 
those  problems  and  for  those  policies  we  must 
prepare — prepare  thoughtfully,  seriously,  speed- 
ily; for  when  the  war  shall  be  ended,  we  may 
truly  say,  as  Gambetta  said  to  the  French 
people  forty-five  years  ago:  "Now  that  the 
danger  is  past,  the  difficulties  begin." 


VII 
HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS 


An  Address  delivered  before  the  Union  League  of 
Philadelphia,  November  27,  1915 


HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS 

It  was  my  lot  to  be  born  after  the  Civil  War 
had  begun  and  for  me  the  name,  the  face,  and 
the  repute  of  Abraham  Lincoln  belong  not  to 
memory  but  to  imagination.  Yet  I  was  brought 
up  under  the  very  shadow  of  his  name,  of  his 
fame,  and  of  his  work.  The  events  and  cir- 
cumstances of  his  Hfe  were  among  the  earliest 
lessons  that  it  was  my  fortune  to  learn.  It 
seemed  to  me  then,  and  it  seems  to  me  now, 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  left  to  every  American 
born  after  him  a  legacy  in  the  form  of  a  direct 
injunction  to  love  his  country,  to  study  its 
needs,  to  make  himself  familiar  with  its  poli- 
cies and  its  problems,  and  to  labor  with  those 
like-minded  with  himself  for  the  advancement 
of  all  of  these. 

The  era  of  Lincoln,  of  the  Civil  War,  and  of 

nation-building — that  great  classic  era  in  the 

history  of  the  western  world  and  of  all  mankind 

— is  closed.     The  problems  that  confronted  the 

founders  and  the  builders  of  our  nation  are  still 

our  problems,  but  they  are  presented  to  us  in 

103 


I04  HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS  ' 

a  diflPerent  form.  We  are  no  longer  a  young 
people,  but  a  comparatively  old  and  well- 
established  one.  We  are,  thank  God,  a  united 
people.  We  have  solved,  let  us  hope  forever 
and  finally,  the  problem  of  building  a  single 
great  nation  out  of  a  group  of  federated  States 
with  diverse  populations,  with  conflicting  eco- 
nomic needs  and  desires,  and  we  have  opened 
our  arms  to  the  whole  wide  world  that  it  may 
enter  in  and  share  with  us  and  with  our  children 
the  shelter  and  the  protection  of  this  noble 
structure.  When  so  much  has  been  done  we 
find  ourselves  confronted  with  the  problems  of 
an  older  people  and  of  a  better-established  civ- 
ihzation.  It  is  no  longer  necessary  for  us  to 
find  men  of  energy  and  ambition  to  explore  a 
continent,  to  bridge  rivers,  to  fell  forests,  or  to 
build  railways  across  the  desert;  those  are  the 
problems  of  a  new  people,  and  we  solved  those 
problems  in  the  generation  that  followed  1850 
and  i860.  Then  came  the  problems  incident 
to  a  more  concentrated  political  and  economic 
life — the  problems  of  capital  and  labor,  the 
problems  of  the  growth  of  great  corporate 
wealth,  of  the  organization  of  business  and  of 
the  development  of  public  utilities,  as  well  as 


HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS  105 

the  relation  of  all  these  to  government,  both 
State  and  national.  During  all  this  second 
period,  which  was  shorter  than  the  first,  very 
intense  and  tremendously  important,  abound- 
ing in  problems  that  touched  the  interests  and 
convictions  of  every  citizen,  we  were  still  a  self- 
centred  people.  We  had  foreign  relations,  but 
they  were  of  minor  importance.  They  occupied 
the  attention  of  the  President,  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  State,  and  of  the  Senate,  but  beyond 
that  they  hardly  existed  for  the  great  mass  of 
our  American  population.  But  now,  in  a 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  the  outlook  that  confronts 
America  has  changed  and  we  are  about  to 
enter,  perhaps  it  would  be  correct  to  say  we 
have  already  entered,  upon  a  new  and  third 
period  of  our  political  development  and  of  our 
intellectual  and  moral  preoccupation.  We  are 
now  confronted  with  the  fact,  borne  in  upon 
us  in  a  thousand  ways,  that  steam,  electricity, 
the  use  of  the  air,  the  development  of  modern 
industry  and  finance,  have  conspired  to  destroy 
distance  and  to  eliminate  time,  and  that  these 
have  bound  the  whole  world  together  in  a  new 
and  hitherto  unsuspected  sort  of  interdepen- 
dence.    Out   of  that    interdependence    of   the 


io6  HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS 

nations  an  interdependence  of  our  nation  with 
other  nations  of  the  world,  comes  the  new 
series  of  problems  for  the  consideration  and 
the  solution  of  which  this  nation  must  insis- 
tently and  thoughtfully  prepare. 

The  old  world  order  changed  when  this  war- 
storm  broke.  The  old  international  order 
passed  away  as  suddenly,  as  unexpectedly, 
and  as  completely  as  if  it  had  been  wiped  out 
by  a  gigantic  flood,  by  a  great  tempest,  or  by 
a  volcanic  eruption.  The  old  world  order  died 
with  the  setting  of  that  day's  sun  and  a  new 
world  order  is  being  born  while  I  speak,  with 
birth-pangs  so  terrible  that  it  seems  almost  in- 
credible that  life  could  come  out  of  such  fear- 
ful suffering  and  such  overwhelming  sorrow. 

What  has  America  to  do  with  it  all?  All 
these  terrible  clashings  and  crashings  are  on 
the  other  side  of  the  world,  from  which  we  are 
separated  by  a  great  ocean.  How  do  these 
matters  affect  us,  secure  in  our  protection 
across  three  thousand  miles  of  sea,  living  under 
other  political  institutions  and  under  the  domi- 
nance of  other  political  ideas  and  with  different 
economic  and  social  interests  ?  To  make  an- 
swer to  these  questions  our  hearts  guide  our 


HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS  107 

heads.  We  first  feel,  and  then  we  see,  the 
community  of  our  interest  with  those  peoples 
in  Europe  who  are  struggling  against  aggression 
for  the  maintenance  of  their  own  national  life, 
their  own  undisturbed  territory,  and  their  own 
free  institutions.  The  world  cannot  be  cut  in 
two  any  longer  by  an  ocean  or  a  mountain 
range.  The  several  peoples  of  the  earth  are 
fellows  and  comrades  and  they  cannot,  if  they 
would,  isolate  themselves  completely  from  each 
other. 

In  this  new  outlook  that  confronts  us  we  are 
not  called  upon,  as  I  see  it,  to  depart  in  princi- 
ple or  in  practice  from  sound  American  policy, 
but  we  are  called  upon  to  consider  whether  new 
occasions  do  not  teach  new  duties  and  whether 
new  problems  do  not  bring  new  opportunities 
and  new  obHgations.  I  would  not  have  the 
people  of  these  United  States  forget  the  injunc- 
tion of  Washington.  I  would  not  have  them 
depart  from  the  path  of  estabhshed  policy  that 
has  been  trodden  so  long  and  on  the  whole  so 
wisely.  I  would  not  have  them  make  an  alli- 
ance, entangling  or  otherwise,  with  any  single 
nation  or  any  group  of  nations  on  the  globe. 
But  I  would  have  them  enter  into  such  rela- 


io8  HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS 

tions  of  intimacy  and  influence  with  every  na- 
tion that  the  spirit  and  convictions  which  ani- 
mate and  permeate  the  American  people  might 
be  made  a  contribution  to  the  world's  civiliza- 
tion when  this  war  ends.     I  would  endeavor  to 
show  to  Europe  how  here  across  the  sea  we 
have  solved  and  are  solving  some  problems  that 
are  in  kind  their  problems.     I  would  try  to 
show  to  Europe  that  whatever  may  be  the  diffi- 
culties and  the  conflicts  which  grow  out  of  dif- 
ferences of  race  and  of  creed  and  of  language, 
those  difficulties  are  only  increased  by  political 
repression,  while  they  are  decreased  by  an  ex- 
tension of  civil  and  political  liberty.     I  would 
try  to  show  that  on  the  whole,  and  despite  the 
dangers    and    difficulties    and    the    many    and 
obvious  embarrassments  which  accompany  it, 
a  national  policy  of  freedom,  of  hospitahty,  and 
of  equal  opportunity  solves  more  problems  than 
it  leaves  unsolved,  and  that  on  the  whole  it 
solves  more  political  problems  than  any  other 
alternative  policy  that  has  yet  been  presented 
for  the  government  of  men.     I  would  not  inter- 
fere for  a  moment  with  the  internal  concerns  of 
any  European  nation  or  with  their  just  ambi- 
tions, their  alliances,  and  their  rivalries,  but  at 


HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS  109 

a  time  like  this  I  would  not  throw  away  the 
lesson  of  a  hundred  and  tw'enty-five  years  of 
life  and  government  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  I  would  make  a  world  fig- 
ure of  Washington.  I  would  make  world  fig- 
ures of  Hamilton  and  Jefferson,  of  Marshall 
and  Webster.  I  would  make  a  world  figure  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  I  would  make  their  names, 
their  faces,  their  public  acts,  and  the  great  ten- 
dencies and  institutions  that  they  organized  and 
represented  the  property  of  the  whole  civilized 
world  for  the  benefit  of  all  mankind.  For  this 
or  for  any  such  policy  of  international  influence 
this  nation  must  prepare. 

We  have  been  speaking  much  of  late  of  pre- 
paredness, and  properly  so;  but  there  is  an 
aspect  of  this  important  question  that  has 
hardly  been  touched  upon,  and  as  to  which 
the  public  mind  is  as  yet  almost  completely 
uninformed.  That  question  is  this:  What  is  to 
be  the  object  of  your  preparedness  ?  What  are 
to  be  the  policies  that  you  are  going  to  teach, 
to  defend,  and  to  extend  over  the  earth  ? 
What  are  to  be  the  ideals  that  you  are  going 
to  hold  up  before  yourselves  and  then  before 
the  other  nations  of  the  earth  ?     Armies  and 


no  HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS 

navies  are  not  ends;  they  are  means.  But 
means  to  what  end  ?  For  what  are  we  going 
to  prepare  ?  Are  we  going  to  prepare  to  make 
this  nation  first  a  model  nation  at  home  and 
then  a  model  nation  abroad  ?  If  we  are  going 
to  do  this,  then  we  have  a  policy.  If  we  are 
not  going  to  do  this,  then  we  have  no  policy 
but  only  a  proposal  for  expenditure. 

Our  American  ideals  are  not  vague  or  un- 
certain. They  have  been  stated  for  us  in  lan- 
guage that  the  whole  world  can  read,  in  words 
that  will  remain  forever  familiar  where  the 
history  of  freedom  is  read  and  studied.  They 
have  been  written  for  us  particularly  in  four 
great  historic  documents.  You  will  find  them 
in  the  opening  paragraphs  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  You  will  find  them  in  the  pre- 
amble to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
You  will  find  them  in  Washington's  farewell 
address  to  the  American  people.  You  will  find 
them  put  with  all  the  terseness  of  classic  litera- 
ture in  the  immortal  address  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln on  the  battle-field  of  Gettysburg.  Those 
great  documents  have  stated  for  us  the  aims, 
the  ideals,  and  the  purposes  of  this  government, 
as  well  as  the  aims,  the  ideals,  and  the  purposes 


HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS  iii 

of  the  people  in  founding  and  in  maintaining 
this  government.  It  is  for  a  fuller  comprehen- 
sion of  those  aims,  those  ideals,  and  those  pur- 
poses, for  a  more  complete  carrying  out  of 
them  at  home,  and  for  a  more  effective  teach- 
ing of  them  abroad  that  we  must  prepare.  We 
must  prepare  under  the  leadership  of  those  who 
by  experience,  by  training,  by  discipline,  and  by 
conviction  are  able  to  help  us  set  our  feet  in 
these  new  paths.  For  it  is  as  true  to-day  as  it 
was  when  the  prophet  first  said  it,  that  where 
there  is  no  vision  the  people  perish. 

The  time  has  come  when  the  American  people 
must  learn  to  think  internationally.  We  must 
learn  to  think  in  terms  of  our  relations  with  the 
whole  world,  and  we  must  learn  to  think  of 
other  peoples  than  ourselves  with  such  sym- 
pathy, with  such  kindliness,  and  with  such  un- 
derstanding as  will  enable  us  to  appreciate  the 
point  of  view,  the  opinions,  and  the  institutions 
of  those  whose  experiences  have  been  different 
from  our  own.  I  like  to  think  that  the  hand 
of  fate  has  brought  to  us  out  of  this  terrible 
war  a  new  and  unexpected  call  to  achievement; 
first  at  home  in  putting  our  own  house  in  order, 
and  next  abroad  in  teaching  the  peoples  of  the 


112  HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS 

world  a  lesson  that  the  founders  and  the  fathers 
have  taught  us.  In  all  this,  however,  we  must 
walk  circumspectly  and  without  either  pride 
or  arrogance.  We  ourselves  have  still  too 
much  to  learn  to  justify  us  in  attempting  the 
task  of  imposing,  single-handed,  new  ideals 
upon  the  world.  We  can,  however,  and  we 
should  participate,  with  the  open-minded  and 
broad-minded  of  every  land  in  the  perpetual 
and  persistent  re-examination  of  our  own  prin- 
ciples, our  own  aims,  our  own  purposes,  and 
by  conferring  and  consulting  together  as  to 
how  best  we  can  advance  this  nation  and  every 
nation  in  paths  of  justice  and  of  liberty. 

We  have  great  economic  problems  that  are 
in  part  internal  and  that  are  in  part  interna- 
tional. There  are  signs  that  this  new  inter- 
national era  of  which  I  speak  is  going  to  help 
us  to  solve  some  of  our  internal  economic  prob- 
lems. 

We  have  got  to  face  under  these  new  condi- 
tions the  world-old  problem  of  how  to  provide 
justly  for  equal  opportunity,  and  how  to  pro- 
vide an  economic  basis  for  individual  existence 
in  order  that  men  may  be  able  to  live  at  all. 
It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  preach  ideals  of 


HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS  113 

government  to  a  starving  man.  We  must  pro- 
vide, first,  wisely,  justly,  and  securely  for  our 
internal  economic  organization,  in  order  that 
we  may  be  able  to  do  these  new  international 
deeds  of  which  I  speak.  In  other  words,  while 
our  whole  problem,  national  and  international, 
is  bound  up  together,  it  becomes  immensely 
larger  and  immensely  more  important  than  it 
has  ever  been  before,  because  we  have  now 
discovered  these  innumerable  points  of  con- 
tact with  other  nations  and  we  see  the  meaning 
and  significance  on  one  side  of  the  world  of 
some  public  act  or  economic  policy  that  has  its 
origin  on  the  other.  This  is  all  a  part  of  the 
task  that  I  call  learning  to  think  internation- 
ally. It  will  affect  our  domestic  problems  and 
our  domestic  policies,  as  well  as  our  foreign 
problems  and  our  foreign  policies. 

Unless  I  mistake  the  signs  of  the  times,  this 
nation  is  crying  out  for  leadership.  It  is  cry- 
ing out  for  a  voice  that  will  give  expression  to 
its  political  conviction  and  to  its  moral  purpose 
in  tones  that  every  American  will  understand. 
Unless  I  mistake  the  signs  of  the  times,  the 
American  people  would  Hke  a  leadership  whose 
ear  is  not  continually  fastened  to  the  ground. 


114  HIGHER  PREPAREDNESS 

We  wish,  we  need,  we  long  for  a  determined, 
clear,  and  sympathetic  voice  that  will  do  for 
our  day  and  generation  what  Abraham  Lincoln 
did  for  his.  A  voice  that  will  look  dowh  into 
the  hearts  of  the  plain  people,  that  will  know 
the  conditions  that  influence  their  lives,  that 
will  understand  the  motives  that  guide  their 
action,  that  will  sympathize  with  their  ambi- 
tions, with  their  difficulties,  and  with  their  fail- 
ures, and  that  will  call  them  up  to  the  high 
places  of  the  earth  as  did  those  voices  that 
called  our  fathers  up  to  their  great  achievement. 
Give  us  leadership.  Give  us  a  mind  to  seek, 
a  heart  to  feel,  and  a  voice  to  proclaim  what 
the  American  people  of  this  day  and  this  gen- 
eration aspire  to  do  at  home  and  abroad. 


VIII 
THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION 


An  Address  delivered  at  the  Annual   Luncheon  of  the 

Associated  Press  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  New  York, 

April  25,  1916 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION 

If  any  significance  be  attached  to  what  I 
shall  briefly  say  in  your  presence,  it  can  only 
be  because  it  represents  the  attempt  of  one 
American  who  feels  keenly  the  responsibility 
of  his  country  and  of  its  entire  citizenship  at 
this  moment  when  the  world  stands  at  a  cross- 
roads in  its  path  of  progress.  If  we  stand  at 
that  crossroads  irresolute,  paralyzed  of  word 
and  will,  history  will  have  one  story  to  tell.  If 
we  turn  to  the  right  and  take  the  path  that 
leads  upward  to  new  achievement  and  to  last- 
ing honor,  it  will  have  a  very  different  story  to 
tell.  If  we  should  turn  to  the  left  and  follow 
the  winding  and  rocky  road  that  leads  down 
to  a  darkening  gloom — we  know  not  where — 
history  will  have  yet  another  record  to  make 
of  the  American  people  and  of  their  capacity 
to  represent  civilization. 

It    is   just    about   twenty   years    ago   since 

George  Meredith,  writing  to  the  London  Daily 

NewSy  said  that  since  the  benignant  outcome 

of  the  greatest  of  civil  wars  he  had  come  to 

117 


li8     THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION  ' 

look  upon  the  American  people  as  the  leaders 
in  civilization.  That  is  a  proud  and  ennobling 
judgment,  and  we  may  well  search  our  minds 
and  our  hearts  to  ascertain  whether  it  be  true, 
and  whether  we  are  competent  for  the  high 
honor  that  so  distinguished  an  observer  of  his 
kind  proffered  to  us  as  his  personal  judgment. 

The  question  which  I  ask  in  your  presence 
this  afternoon  is  this:  Have  we  an  American 
nation  ?  If  so,  is  that  nation  conscious  of  a 
unity  of  purpose  and  of  ideals  ?  If  so,  what  is 
to  be  the  policy  of  that  nation  in  the  immediate 
future  ? 

Familiar  as  nations  seem  to  us,  they  have 
not  always  existed  in  their  present  form.  The 
new  consciousness  of  unity  that  makes  a  nation 
is  in  part  the  outgrowth  of  unity  of  race  origin, 
in  part  the  outgrowth  of  unity  of  language,  in 
part  the  outgrowth  of  unity  of  institutional 
life,  in  part  the  outgrowth  of  unity  of  military 
and  religious  tradition.  It  seized  hold  of  the 
minds  of  men  in  most  practical  fashion.  The 
result  is  that  from  the  time  of  the  death  of 
Charlemagne  to  the  time  of  the  present  Ger- 
man Emperor  the  history  of  the  world  is  the 
history  of  nation-building  and  of  the  by-prod- 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION     119 

ucts  of  nation-building.  Nation-building  has 
proceeded  usually  by  seeking  out  natural  bound- 
aries in  order  to  gain  the  protection  of  lofty 
mountains,  or  of  broad  rivers,  or  of  the  sea  it- 
self. One  war  after  another  is  to  be  explained 
in  terms  of  a  nation's  definite  purpose  to  pos- 
sess itself  of  a  geographic  unity  as  its  home. 
There  has  been  by  no  means  equal  care  taken 
by  the  nations  to  establish  and  to  protect  an 
ethnic  unity.  A  strong  people  has  usually  felt 
confident  that  it  could  hold  an  alien  element  in 
subjection  and  yet  preserve  national  integrity 
and  unity  of  spirit.  So  one  after  another  of 
the  greater  nations  of  the  world  has,  in  seeking 
for  geographic  unity,  insisted  on  incorporating 
in  its  own  body  politic  alien  and  often  discor- 
dant elements  and  holding  them  in  stern  sub- 
jection. The  examj^les  are  too  familiar  to  be 
recited  here. 

This  process  of  nation-building  has  gone  on 
until  the  nation  has  come  to  be  conceived  as 
an  end  in  itself,  as  superior  to  law,  to  the  con- 
ventions of  morality,  and  to  the  precepts  of 
religion.  A  form  of  patriotism  has  been  devel- 
oped all  over  the  world  which  finds  in  the  na- 
tion itself  the  highest  human  end.     The  logical 


I20     THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION 

result,  and  indeed  the  almost  necessary  result, 
of  this  type  of  thinking  is  the  war  which  is 
now  creeping  over  the  world's  civilization  and 
destroying  it  with  the  sure  pitilessness  of  an 
Alpine  glacier. 

This  war  is  the  nemesis  of  nation-building 
conceived  as  an  end  in  itself.  Unless  a  nation, 
like  an  individual,  have  some  purpose,  some 
ideal,  some  motive  which  lies  outside  of  and 
beyond  self-interest  and  self-aggrandizement, 
war  must  continue  on  the  face  of  this  earth 
until  the  day  when  the  last  and  strongest  man, 
superb  in  his  mighty  loneliness,  shall  look  out 
from  a  rock  in  the  Caribbean  upon  a  world 
that  has  been  depopulated  in  its  pursuit  of  a 
false  ideal,  and  be  left  to  die  alone  with  none 
to  mourn  or  to  bury  him. 

In  the  history  of  nations  the  story  of  our 
America  has  a  place  that  is  all  its  own.  The 
American  nation  came  into  being  in  response 
to  a  clear  and  definite  purpose.  A  theory  of 
human  life  and  of  human  government  was  con- 
ceived and  put  into  execution  on  a  remote  and 
inaccessible  part  of  the  earth's  surface.  The 
moving  cause  of  the  American  nation  was  the 
aspiration  for  civil  and  political  liberty  and  for 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION     121 

individual  freedom  which  was  already  stirring 
in  the  minds  of  western  Europe  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries.  This  aspiration 
gained  in  force  as  the  art  of  printing  multiplied 
books,  and  as  the  periodical  press  came  into 
existence.  The  high-minded,  the  courageous, 
the  venturesome  were  drawn  across  the  wide 
ocean  toward  the  west,  carrying  with  them  for 
the  most  part  the  liberal  ideas  and  the  advanced 
thought  that  were  steadily  increasing  their 
hold  upon  the  people  of  western  Europe.  Great 
Britain,  Holland,  France,  were  responding  in 
steadily  increasing  measure  to  the  same  ideals 
that  led  the  Puritan  to  Massachusetts  Bay  and 
the  Cavalier  to  Virginia. 

On  this  Atlantic  shore  distances  were  great 
and  communication  difficult.  In  addition  there 
were  social,  economic,  and  religious  differences 
that  kept  the  struggling  colonists  apart.  The 
result  was  that  there  grew  up  here  not  a  na- 
tion, but  the  material  out  of  which  a  nation 
could  be  made.  There  is  a  sense,  a  deep  and 
striking  sense,  in  which  the  same  remains  abso- 
lutely true  to-day.  There  is  not  yet  a  nation, 
but  the  rich  and  fine  materials  out  of  which  a 
true  nation  can  be  made  by  the  architect  with 


12  2     THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION 

vision  to  plan   and  by  the  builder  with  skill 
adequate  to  execute. 

When  a  common  oppression  forced  the  sep- 
arate colonists  together  they  still  sadly  lacked 
that  devotion  to  a  unity  higher  than  any  of 
its  component  parts  which  would  have  saved 
so  much  loss  and  so  much  suffering  during  the 
days  of  revolution  and  of  the  first  steps  toward 
a  National  Government.  An  enormous  step 
forward  was  taken  when  the  National  Govern- 
ment was  built.  In  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  the  corner-stone 
was  laid  for  one  of  the  most  splendid  structures 
in  all  the  history  of  nations.  Then  quickly  fol- 
lowed sharp  political  divergence.  There  were 
those  who  would  lay  stress  upon  the  new  na- 
tional unity;  there  were  still  more  who  thought 
it  important  to  emphasize  the  separate  ele- 
ments out  of  which  that  unity  had  been  com- 
posed. The  judicial  logic  of  Marshall  and  the 
convincing  eloquence  of  Webster  were  the  chief 
unifying  and  nation-building  forces  in  the  gen- 
eration that  followed.  Meanwhile  sharp  dif- 
ferences of  economic  interest  were  manifesting 
themselves,  and  the  fatal  question  of  slavery 
pressed  forward  both  as  an  economic  and  as  a 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION     123 

political  issue.  The  new  nation,  which  had  al- 
ready made  such  progress  upon  the  foundations 
laid  by  the  fathers,  fell  apart,  and  only  after 
one  of  the  most  terrible  and  destructive  of  civil 
wars  were  the  ruins  of  the  disaster  cleared  away 
and  the  ground  prepared  for  the  next  step  in 
construction.  Here  again  mistakes  were  made 
so  numerous  and  so  severe  that  the  unifying 
and  nation-building  process  was  checked  and 
held  back  for  many  years. 

Then  two  new  sets  of  separating  and  disin- 
tegrating forces  began  to  make  themselves 
strongly  felt.  First,  the  economic  differences 
which  must  of  necessity  manifest  themselves 
over  so  large  and  so  diverse  a  territory  now  re- 
vealed themselves  with  new  force — in  part  as 
a  result  of  the  industrial  revolution  and  in  part 
as  a  result  of  purely  American  conditions — as 
involving  a  class  conflict  between  capital  and 
labor.  Soon  there  were  signs  that  citizenship, 
with  its  compelling  allegiance  to  the  common 
weal,  was  to  be  subordinated  in  discouraging 
fashion,  not  once  but  often,  to  the  immediate 
interests  and  policies  of  an  economic  class. 

Second,  the  immigration  from  other  coun- 
tries, which  had  been  for  a  long  time  substan- 


124     THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION 

tially  homogeneous  became  increasingly  and 
rapidly  heterogeneous.  New  nationalities,  new 
languages,  new  racial  affinities  were  drawn  upon 
for  the  recruitment  of  the  population  of  the 
United  States.  The  hopes  and  the  ambitions 
which  one  hundred  and  two  hundred  years 
before  had  been  the  pecuHar  property  of  the 
people  of  Western  Europe  had  now  spread  far 
away  to  the  East  and  to  the  South.  With  this 
heterogeneous  immigration  there  came,  in  no 
inconsiderable  measure,  the  echo  of  the  Old 
World  animosities  and  feuds  and  hates.  These 
did  not  manifest  themselves  in  any  direct  sense 
as  anti-American,  but  they  did  manifest  them- 
selves with  sufficient  strength  to  deprive  Amer- 
ica of  a  unity  of  attitude,  of  feeling,  and  of 
policy  in  dealing  with  the  international  rela- 
tions which  every  day  grow  in  importance  and 
in  significance. 

So  it  is  that  at  this  moment,  with  a  world 
war  raging  about  us,  with  years  full  of  fate 
stretched  out  for  us  to  walk  in,  we  are  not  sure 
of  our  national  unity  of  thought  and  feeHng 
and  purpose  because  of  the  presence  of  disin- 
tegrating elements  and  forces  which  weaken 
our  sense  of  unity  at  home  and  which  deprive 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION     125 

us  of  the  influence  abroad  which  attaches  to 
unity  at  home.  The  grave  problem  before  the 
American  people  to-day  is  that  of  completing 
the  process  of  nation-building.  It  is  the  prob- 
lem of  setting  our  house  in  order.  It  is  the 
problem  of  integrating  America.  It  is  the 
problem  of  subordinating  every  personal  ambi- 
tion, every  class  interest  and  policy,  every  race 
attachment,  to  the  one  dominant  idea  of  an 
America  free,  just,  powerful,  forward-facing, 
that  shall  stand  out  in  the  history  of  nations  as 
the  name  of  a  people  who  conceive  their  mission 
and  their  true  greatness  to  lie  in  service  to 
mankind.  We  are  the  inheritors  of  a  great 
tradition.  What  poets  and  philosophers  have 
dreamed,  that  we  are  trying  day  by  day  to  do. 
Our  stumblings,  our  blunders,  our  shortcom- 
ings are  many;  but  if  we  keep  our  hearts  clean 
and  our  heads  clear  he  who  a  thousand  years 
from  now  writes  the  history  of  liberty  and  jus- 
tice and  happiness  among  men  will  be  able  to 
tell  to  those  far-ofF  generations  a  proud  story  of 
the  rise  and  influence  of  the  American  nation. 
We  find  here  everything  which  is  needed  for 
a  great  nation.  The  task  before  us  to-day  is 
to  make   it.     The   task   before   the   American 


126     THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION 

people  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  speedy 
continuation,  and,  if  it  be  practicable,  the 
completion  of  the  process  of  nation-building. 
It  is  the  problem  of  the  integration  of  America 
about  those  great  fundamental  principles  and 
purposes  which  the  very  name  America  itself 
brings  to  our  minds  and  which  this  flag  stirs  to 
expression  on  every  lip. 

We  know  in  our  heart  what  America  means. 
The  problem  is  to  teach  it  to  our  fellows;  to 
share  with  them  an  understanding  and  an 
appreciation  of  it;  to  unite  with  them  in  an 
expression  of  it.  We  wish  to  build  a  nation 
fit  to  serve;  a  nation  that  does  not  find  its  end 
in  its  own  aggrandizement,  however  great  that 
be;  a  nation  that  cannot  find  its  purpose  com- 
plete in  amassing  all  the  wealth  of  Golconda, 
but  that  can  only  achieve  its  aim  by  carrying 
a  message  to  mankind  of  what  has  been  found 
possible  on  this  continent.  Saxon  and  Celt, 
Teuton  and  Slav,  Latin  and  Hun,  all  are  here 
not  as  aliens  but  as  citizens;  not  as  immigrants 
but  as  members  of  a  body  politic  which  is  new 
in  conception  in  human  history,  as  it  is  new  in 
its  own  thought  of  its  high  purpose.  Can 
America  integrate  itself  at  this  crisis;  can  it 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION     127 

show  that  here  is  a  nation  which,  out  of  vari- 
ous and  varied  ethnic  elements,  can  be  brought 
into  a  genuine  unity  by  devotion  to  high  prin- 
ciple and  by  moral  purpose  before  the  face  of 
all  mankind  ?  Can  we  make  an  America  that 
shall  go  down  the  corridors  of  time  with  a 
proud  place  on  the  pages  of  history  ? 

We  must  remember  that  the  greatest  em- 
pires have  fallen  as  well  as  risen.  We  must 
remember  that  the  most  powerful  dynasties 
have  passed  away  as  well  as  come  into  exist- 
ence. There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  our 
America  is  going  to  escape  the  everlasting  law 
of  change.  We  know  its  history  and  its  origin. 
We  have  seen  its  rise.  We  know  its  present 
state.  Who  can  predict  how  many  hundreds 
or  thousands  of  years  it  will  take  before  the 
forests  will  be  felled  and  the  streams  will  be 
dried,  and  this  great  fertile  continent  of  ours, 
like  the  plains  of  ancient  Iran,  where  civiliza- 
tion began,  will  become  a  desert,  fit  only  for 
the  exploring  parties  of  the  archaeologist  ? 
When  that  time  comes,  what  do  we  want  to 
have  written  on  the  pages  of  history  of  those 
who  lived  for  hundreds  or  perhaps  thousands 
of  years  on  this  continent  ?     What  do  we  want 


128     THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION 

to  have  said  about  the  way  in  which  America 
met  the  greatest  crisis  of  the  world's  so-called 
modern  history  in  1916  ?  Do  we  wish  a  nation 
weak,  broken  to  pieces,  irresolute,  filled  with 
conflicting  and  discordant  voices,  or  do  we 
wish  a  nation  unified,  strong,  sympathetic,  and 
ready  to  respond  to  the  cause  of  a  common 
purpose  to  serve  all  humanity,  even  though 
the  rest  of  humanity  be  at  war  with  itself  ? 

The  year  1916  is  but  one  member  of  an  infi- 
nite series.  Countless  eons  have  gone  before 
it  and  countless  eons  will  come  after  it.  The 
physical  forces  of  nature  will  go  their  way 
through  indefinite  time,  performing  their  al- 
lotted functions,  obeying  their  peculiar  laws, 
and  undergoing  those  manifold  changes  and 
transmutations  which  make  up  the  heavens  and 
the  earth.  Not  so  with  the  reputation  and  the 
influence  of  a  nation.  Opportunity  will  not 
knock  forever  at  any  door.  It  is  knocking 
now  at  the  door  of  the  American  people.  If 
they  are  able  to  rise  to  an  appreciation  of  their 
own  part  in  the  world,  of  their  own  controlling 
principles  and  policies;  if  they  are  able  to  put 
aside  every  self-seeking,  every  distracting,  every 
brutal  appeal,  then  no  one  can  tell  what  light 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION     129 

may  illumine  the  page  on  which  the  history  of 
our  nation  will  yet  be  written. 

It  is  nearly  sixty  years  since  Abraham  Lin- 
coln in  his  debates  with  Senator  Douglas  made 
much  use  of  the  Scriptural  saying  that  "a. 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand"; 
and  he  added,  "I  do  not  expect  the  house  will 
fall,  but  I  do  expect  the  house  will  cease  to  be 
divided."  So  I  say  to-day  to  this  influential 
company  of  Americans,  we  do  expect,  every 
one  of  us,  that  our  house  will  cease  to  be 
divided.  We  do  expect  that  our  America  will 
come  to  full  consciousness  of  its  purpose;  that 
the  serene  courage  of  Washington,  the  con- 
structive genius  of  Hamilton,  the  keen  human 
insight  and  sympathy  of  Jefferson,  the  patient 
wisdom  of  Lincoln,  will  not  have  been  in  vain 
in  teaching  us  what  our  country  is  and  may 
become.  Shall  we  catch  sight  of  that  some- 
thing higher  than  selfishness,  higher  than  ma- 
terial gain,  higher  than  the  triumph  of  brute 
force,  which  alone  can  lead  a  nation  up  to 
those  high  places  that  become  sacred  in  his- 
tory, and  from  which  influence  descends  in  a 
mighty  torrent,  to  refresh,  to  vivify,  and  to 
inspire  all  mankind .? 


I30     THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  NATION 

It  is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  in  ancient  times 
that  where  there  is  no  vision  the  people  perish. 
We  can  make  an  America  with  a  vision.  We 
cannot  make  it  without. 


IX 

NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND 


An  Address  delivered  before  the  Commercial  Club,  San 
Francisco,  Cal.,  August  8,  1916 


NATIONALITY   AND   BEYOND 

It  is  no  small  satisfaction  to  be  able  to  stand 
for  a  few  moments  this  afternoon  in  the  pres- 
ence of  this  great  company  of  busy  men,  in 
order  to  discuss  with  them,  however  im- 
perfectly, a  matter  which  ought  to  be  upper- 
most in  the  minds  of  every  one  of  us. 

Some  weeks  ago  I  was  surprised  and  shocked 
to  read  in  the  public  press  the  statement, 
attributed  to  a  person  of  high  importance,  that 
with  the  causes  and  the  outcome  of  the  Euro- 
pean War  we  Americans  were  not  concerned. 
I  am  bound  to  assume  that  the  words  must 
have  been  used  in  some  strange  and  unusual 
manner,  for  I  find  myself  unable  to  believe  that 
any  intelligent  American,  in  high  station  or  in 
low,  could  hold  the  view  which  these  words, 
interpreted  literally,  would  appear  to  express. 
I  should  as  soon  expect  one  to  say  that  we 
Americans  were  not  interested  in  the  revival  of 
learning,  or  in  the  causes  or  outcome  of  the 
French  Revolution,  or  in  the  invention  of  print- 
ing, or  in  the  harnessing  of  science  to  industry, 

133 


134         NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND 

or  in  any  one  of  the  great,  significant  events 
in  the  history  of  free  men.  For  unless  I  am 
wholly  mistaken  in  the  significance  of  these 
years  through  which  we  are  passing,  we  are 
living  in  one  of  the  great  epoch-marking  crises 
of  the  history  of  the  world.  We  are  standing 
at  one  of  the  watersheds  from  the  heights  of 
which  streams  of  tendency  and  of  influence 
will  flow  for  generations,  perhaps  for  centuries 
to  come,  now  this  way  and  now  that. 

What  we  are  witnessing  is  not  an  ordinary 
international  war.  We  are  not  spectators  of  a 
contest  between  Guatemala  and  Honduras  over 
a  boundary;  we  are  standing  before  a  struggle 
so  stupendous,  involving  such  incalculable  sums 
of  human  treasure  that  all  the  great  contests 
with  which  history  is  strewn  fade  into  insignifi- 
cance before  it.  This  contest  is  not  between 
savage  and  barbarous  and  untutored  and  back- 
ward peoples.  It  is  not  a  strong  barbarian  who 
is  emerging  from  the  jungle  to  extend  his  reach 
over  the  less  powerful.  This  war  is  a  clash 
between  ideals.  It  is  a  controversy  over  ideals 
and  national  purposes,  and  it  takes  rank  with 
the  most  magnificent  events  in  all  history;  and 
I  use  the  word  magnificent  in  its  literal  sense 


NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND         135 

of  great-making,  a  great  making-over  of  issues 
and  tendencies. 

What  we  are  witnessing  is  the  end  of  the 
old  notions  of  Nationality.  We  are  standing 
at  the  bloody  grave  of  an  ideal  that  is  a 
thousand  years  old,  one  that  has  made  the 
history  of  Europe  since  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  And  we  are  witnessing  the  birth  of 
a  new  ideal,  an  ideal  of  Nationality  with  new 
human  significance,  new  human  service,  and 
new  human  helpfulness — an  ideal  of  Nation- 
ality higher  than  mere  self-aggrandizement,  or 
economic  wealth,  or  military  power.  This  is 
an  ideal  which  calls  to  the  heart  and  to  the 
mind  of  every  American,  and  stirs  his  soul  with 
the  hope  and  the  desire  that  his  nation  may 
participate  in  the  upbuilding  of  a  new  concep- 
tion of  national  purpose  that  shall  call  upon 
us  to  see  something  in  a  nation  that  is  beyond 
population  and  wealth  and  trade  and  influence, 
and  that,  whether  the  nation  be  great  or 
whether  it  be  small,  shall  give  it  an  honorable 
place  in  the  great  structure  which  is  civiliza- 
tion. 

Just  so  long  as  every  nation  is  regarded  as 
an  end  in  itself,  just  so  long  will  the  world  be 


136         NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND 

faced  with  the  possibility  of  a  recurrence  of 
this  soul-stirring  tragedy.  Just  so  long  will  the 
time  come,  at  more  or  less  frequent  intervals, 
when  national  ambition,  national  zeal,  national 
selfishness  even,  will  find  themselves  struggling 
for  new  and  forceful  expression,  for  new  and 
greater  extension  of  influence,  for  new  accom- 
plishment and  new  grandeur. 

I  take  it  that  the  dream  of  one  world-empire 
has  passed  away  forever.  It  was  a  dream  that 
came  to  the  ancient  Persians;  it  was  a  dream 
that  sent  Alexander  the  Great  with  his  troops 
out  over  the  deserts  of  Asia;  it  was  a  dream 
that  stirred  the  Roman  conquerors;  it  was  a 
dream  that  gave  Charlemagne  his  name;  it  was 
a  dream  that  showed  us  the  magnificent  spec- 
tacle of  Napoleon  trying  to  turn  back  the  hands 
of  the  clock  of  progress  only  a  century  ago. 
That  dream,  I  take  it,  has  passed  forever,  and 
we  have  now  to  deal  not  with  the  conception 
of  a  world-empire,  but  with  the  conception  of 
clashing,  conflicting,  mutually  antagonistic  na- 
tionalities. International  war  at  intervals  is 
the  necessary  accompaniment  of  that  stage  of 
national  politics.  But  magnificent  as  was  the 
diplomacy    and    the    statecraft    of   those   who 


NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND         137 

builded  the  present  nations  of  Europe,  that 
statecraft  and  the  ideal  of  nationahty  which  it 
pursued,  have  passed  away  forever.  We  are 
now  coming  to  that  state  of  international  poHcy 
where,  whether  a  nation  be  democratic  or 
monarchical,  informed  public  opinion  matters 
mightily,  and  little  by  little  is  becoming  the 
responsible  controller  of  policy.  An  instructed 
and  conscientious  public  opinion  is  reaching 
out  to  take  the  control  of  international  policy 
out  of  the  hands  of  monarchs  and  their  irre- 
sponsible ministers,  and  to  put  that  control  in 
the  hands  of  representative  ministers  of  gov- 
ernment who  are  responsible  to  their  several 
peoples  and  who  will  no  longer  wage  wars  for 
personal,  dynastic,  or  merely  individual  aims. 
As  that  democratizing  of  international  relations, 
of  foreign  policy,  takes  place,  the  ground  will 
be  ploughed  and  harrowed  and  seeded  and 
prepared  for  the  crop  of  a  new  ideal.  This  is 
the  ideal  of  a  great  community  of  nations  each 
standing,  as  international  law  says  it  shall 
stand,  as  the  equal  of  every  other,  whether 
great  or  small,  powerful  or  weak,  engaged  in 
the  common  co-operative  task  of  advancing  the 
world's  civilization,  of  extending  its  commerce 


138         NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND 

and  trade,  of  developing  its  science,  its  art, 
and  its  literature;  all  aiming  to  increase  the 
standards  of  comfort,  and  to  lift  the  whole 
great  mass  of  mankind  to  new  and  higher 
planes  of  existence,  of  occupation,  and  of  en- 
joyment. In  that  co-operative  family  of  na- 
tions whose  institutions  are  now  in  the  making, 
there  will  be  a  place  for  every  people,  for  every 
race,  and  for  every  language,  and  there  will  be 
a  place  for  us.  The  compact  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  on  the  Mayflower^  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  the  Constitution,  the  Gettys- 
burg Address,  and  Lincoln's  Second  Inaugural 
are  all  one  great  series  of  steps  in  the  develop- 
ment of  our  national  purpose  and  of  our  inter- 
national position  and  influence. 

We  are  constantly  reminded  that  George 
Washington  counselled  this  nation  to  beware  of 
entangling  alliances  that  would  carry  us  into 
the  martial  conflicts  of  Europe.  We  have 
wisely  maintained  that  policy  from  his  day 
to  our  own;  but  nothing  was  further  from 
his  thought  than  to  counsel  us  against  partici- 
pation with  every  other  nation  in  the  solution 
of  the  great  political  problems  common  to  all 
nations.     We  know,  because  their  very  names 


NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND         139 

recall  the  knowledge  to  our  minds,  what  the 
great  nations  of  the  ancient  world  and  of  mod- 
ern times  meant  and  still  mean.  We  know 
what  Italy  means,  what  Germany  means,  what 
France  means,  what  Holland  means,  what 
Great  Britain  means.  We  see  with  the  eye  of 
imagination  their  accomplishments,  their  ser- 
vice, and  their  great  leaders  of  human  influence 
and  of  action  for  centuries  past.  The  question 
that  now  presses  heavily  upon  our  American 
people  is.  What  shall  we  make  America  to  be } 
Shall  America  come  to  be  merely  the  symbol 
for  a  busy  hive  of  industrious  bees,  or  a  sym- 
bol for  a  great  hill  of  intelligent  ants  .?  Shall  it 
mean  only  a  nation  absorbed  in  daily  toil,  in 
accumulation,  in  individual  satisfaction,  or 
shall  it  mean  a  nation  so  intelligent  as  to  its 
purposes,  so  secure  in  its  grasp  upon  its  ideals 
and  so  devoted  to  them,  that  it  will  not  rest 
until  it  has  carried  all  round  this  world  an 
American  message  that  will  raise  and  help  and 
succor  the  stricken  and  conflicting  family  of 
peoples .?  Shall  we  keep  to  ourselves  the  great 
fundamental  American  accomplishments  that 
have  in  them  lessons  for  the  whole  world,  or 
shall  we  use  our  influence  to  teach  to  others 


I40         NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND 

those    accomplishments    and    to   spread   them 
abroad  ? 

I  mean,  first,  our  literally  stupendous  achieve- 
ment in  federation.  We  have  shown  for  the 
first  time  in  history  on  a  large  scale  that  there 
may  be  flexibihty  in  government  combined 
with  a  single  unit  of  ultimate  control.  We  have 
shown  how  we  can  retain  personal  liberty  and 
local  self-government  while  building  up  a 
strong,  powerful,  united  nation.  Believe  me, 
the  world  outside  of  the  United  States  is  wait- 
ing to  profit  by  that  experience.  If  there  can 
be  a  common  unity  between  Maine  and  Cali- 
fornia, Washington  and  Florida,  uniting  local 
self-government  with  membership  in  a  great 
federated  nation,  why  is  not  some  part  of  that 
principle  and  why  is  not  some  part  of  that 
experience  to  be  made  ready  for  use  and  appli- 
cation by  Great  Britain,  and  Italy,  and  France, 
and  Hungary,  and  Russia,  and  the  rest  ? 

Then,  so  many  human  conflicts  arise  out  of 
differences  of  language,  differences  of  religion, 
differences  of  institutional  life,  and  so  often 
the  attempt  has  been  made  to  suppress  and  to 
oppress  the  weak  by  the  stronger.  Men  and 
women  are  told  that  they  may  not  worship 


NATiONALlfY  AND  BEYOND         141 

According  to  their  faith;  that  their  children 
may  not  be  educated  in  schools  where  the  ver- 
nacular is  taught;  and  that  there  must  be  vari- 
ous differences  between  races  and  creeds  and 
languages  and  types.  Have  we  not  proved  to 
a  watching  world  that  the  cure  for  that  form 
of  conflict  is  Liberty  ?  Have  we  not  shown 
that  freedom  of  religion,  freedom  of  education, 
equality  of  race  and  of  language,  letting  all 
work  out  their  several  conflicts  and  controver- 
sies as  they  please  subject  only  to  the  law,  is 
the  best  policy  ?  Have  we  not  shown  that  out 
of  these  different  elements,  a  strong,  united 
nation  can  be  built  ?  And  are  we  not  ready 
and  anxious  to  teach  that  to  those  who  would 
still  try  to  unify  by  suppression  and  by  perse- 
cution ? 

Are  we  not  ready  as  Americans  first  to  set 
In  order  our  own  house,  first  to  make  sure  that 
we  ourselves  are  living  at  home  in  accordance 
with  our  ideals,  with  our  best  purposes,  and  are 
learning  the  lessons  of  our  own  experience  ? 
And  then,  shall  we  not  be  ready  to  say  to 
Europe,  to  Asia,  and  to  Africa,  and  to  our 
sister  republics  to  the  South,  that  we  feel  our 
sense   of  international   obligation  ?     We   have 


142         NATIONALITY  AND  BEYOND 

gained  some  information;  we  have  proved  some 
things.  This  information  and  this  experience 
we  offer  them.  We  offer  it  in  persuasiveness, 
in  friendship,  and  in  kindness.  We  offer  this 
as  our  contribution  to  the  great  temple  of  civ- 
ihzation  that  we  all  would  join  to  build. 

What  a  day  it  will  be,  my  fellow  Americans, 
when  we  can  take  our  Washington,  our  Jeffer- 
son, our  Hamilton,  our  Marshall,  our  Webster, 
and  our  Lincoln  out  of  the  restricted  class  of 
merely  American  voices  and  American  figures 
and  American  heroes,  and  give  them  to  the 
world,  to  take  their  first  place  by  the  side  of 
the  great  statesmen,  the  great  artists,  the  great 
poets,  the  great  seers  of  all  time,  as  our  contri- 
bution to  a  new  civilization  in  which  every 
nation  shall  find  its  place !  Understanding  this, 
let  us  press  forward  to  a  single  goal  for  all  men, 
the  goal  described  and  written  in  our  own 
American  Declaration  of  Independence. 

That  is  the  goal  that  lies  beyond  Nationality 
conceived  as  an  end  in  itself. 


X 

THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 


An  Address  delivered  at  a  General  Assembly  of  Columbia 
University,  February  6,  191 7 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 

There  have  been  solemn  and  Impressive  mo- 
ments In  the  Hfe  of  this  University,  and  there  Is 
a  solemn  and  impressive  moment  now. 

When  the  farmers  at  Concord  Bridge  fired 
"the  shot  heard  round  the  world,"  the  men  of 
old  King's  College  offered  their  services  and 
their  lives  to  the  cause  of  national  Indepen- 
dence, and  Hamilton,  Jay,  and  Livingston  went 
out  of  that  little  college  to  lay  the  foundations 
of  a  nation.  In  1861,  when  Abraham  Lincoln, 
patient,  long-suffering,  devoted  to  humanity. 
Issued  his  call  for  75,000  volunteers  to  repel  the 
attack  upon  the  Integrity  of  the  United  States 
that  was  made  in  the  firing  on  Sumter,  the 
halls  of  Columbia  College  were  almost  vacant 
because  of  the  company  of  students  of  that 
day  who,  with  scores  of  the  younger  alumni, 
turned  their  faces  toward  the  light.  We  are 
now  facing  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  our  nation 
and  in  the  history  of  mankind  which  will  take 
its  place  by  the  side  of  the  great  crises  that 
those  who  came  before  us  met  and  faced,  and 

14s 


146  THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 

so  gave  this  ancient  college  a  reputation  for 
public  service  and  for  patriotic  devotion  that 
justifies  the  splendid  inscription  on  yonder 
Library  that  it  exists  "for  the  advancement  of 
the  public  good." 

The  President  of  the  United  States,  in  formal 
statement  to  the  Congress,  and  through  the 
Congress  to  a  listening  world,  has  said  that  he 
deemed  it  his  duty  to  suspend  diplomatic  rela- 
tions with  the  government  of  a  great  people  to 
whom  we  have  long  been  bound  by  many  and 
close  personal  and  intellectual  relationships, 
and  to  say  that  if  there  be  an  overt  attack  in 
violation  of  public  law  upon  an  American  right 
he  will  have  to  ask  the  Congress  for  full  author- 
ity to  protect  and  to  defend  those  rights  by 
whatever  means  may  be  found  necessary.  I 
feel  that  I  may  with  perfect  confidence  promise 
to  the  President  of  the  United  States  the  unani- 
mous support  of  Columbia  University  in  that 
great  duty. 

This  is  no  light  enterprise  which  we  contem- 
plate. Our  people  are  sincerely  devoted  to 
peace  and  would  wish  to  walk  in  its  happy  and 
fruitful  paths  with  all  their  neighbors.  But 
there  is  something  that  they  value  more — and 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  147 

that  is  liberty,  justice,  righteousness,  and  obe- 
dience to  public  law.  Upon  those  foundations 
rest  everything  we  are,  everything  we  have 
been,  everything  we  hope  to  become,  and  every 
service  that  we  can  render  to  mankind.  Upon 
those  foundations  rests  the  hope  of  the  very 
people  who  are  now  so  madly  warring  against 
them.  In  defending  those  great  principles  of 
public  order  we  are  serving  not  the  cause  of 
America  alone,  not  alone  the  cause  of  those 
who  have  so  long  and  so  valiantly  carried  on 
the  struggle  on  the  battle-fields  of  this  war,  but 
we  are  really  serving  the  cause  of  those  who, 
for  the  moment,  are  blinded  to  the  significance 
of  what  they  do. 

Let  no  one  say  that  if  the  President  asks  us 
for  service  he  is  dragging  us  into  a  European 
war  and  into  conflicts  as  to  national  ambition 
and  national  policy  that  are  no  concern  of  ours. 
Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  fact.  There 
was  no  European  war  after  the  fateful  hour 
on  the  morning  of  August  4,  1914,  when  enemy 
troops  crossed  the  line  of  unoffending,  innocent, 
peace-loving  Belgium.  At  that  moment  this 
contest  was  Hfted  out  of  the  area  of  a  mili- 
tary   struggle    between    dynasties    and    com- 


148  THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 

mercial  systems  and  ideas  of  government,  and 
became  a  great  epoch-marking  world  struggle 
as  to  whether  public  law  and  public  right  were 
or  were  not  to  be  held  superior  to  military 
necessity  and  to  military  ambition.  That 
event  made  this  war  an  American  war,  a 
South  American  war,  a  Chinese  war,  a  Span- 
ish war,  an  African  war,  a  war  on  every  man 
and  every  woman  who  hopes  to  live  in  free- 
dom, in  liberty,  and  in  peaceful  progress. 

And  now,  after  a  patience  so  long  continued 
and  so  unexampled  that  it  has  been  doubtless 
misunderstood  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
the  President  has  summed  up  in  clear  phrase 
that  can  escape  no  intelligence  just  what  is  the 
situation  on  this  fateful  day.  He  will  attack 
no  one.  He  will  voluntarily  take  no  human 
life.  He  will  voluntarily  destroy  no  man's 
property.  But  if  it  comes  to  be  a  question  as 
to  the  farther  invasion  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  and  their  rights,  then  that  people 
must  act  as  one  man  in  their  defense-  or  cease 
to  exist  as  other  than  a  vassal  state. 

It  may  be — God  grant  it! — that  this  im- 
pending crisis  may  be  avoided.  But  if  it  is  not, 
the  duty  of  every  member  of  this  University, 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  149 

man  or  woman,  is  perfectly  plain.  It  is  to  say 
to  the  constituted  authorities:  "I  am  an  Ameri- 
can citizen;  I  am  a  son  or  daughter  of  Colum- 
bia; where  can  I  be  of  use  ?  What  can  I  do  ? 
Where  are  my  capacities,  my  strength,  my 
training  available  ?  Can  I  use  my  skill  on 
land,  or  on  sea  ?  Can  I  use  it  in  civil  adminis- 
tration, can  I  use  it  in  supporting  the  needy, 
in  relieving  the  suffering  of  those  who  are  taken 
by  military  necessity  from  their  occupations 
and  their  homes  ?  Can  I  serve  anywhere  in 
the  great  army  of  peace-loving  Americans  who 
would  only  use  force  in  order  that  right  may 
speedily  come  to  rule?" 

Men  and  women  of  Columbia,  let  no  one  of 
you  hesitate.  Let  no  one  of  you  draw  back 
from  this  great  obligation  if  it  shall  be  laid 
upon  you  by  our  government.  Remember  that 
the  stirring  words  of  Mr.  Lowell's  verses  upon 
"The  Present  Crisis,"  written  before  most  of 
us  were  born,  have  direct  and  appealing  appli- 
cation to  you  and  to  me  to-day: 

"Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the  moment  to 
decide, 
In  the  strife  of  Truth  with  Falsehood,  for  the  good  or 
evil  side; 


150  TEE  PRESENT  CRISIS 

Some  great  cause,  God's  new  Messiah,  offering  each  the 

bloom  or  blight. 
Parts  the  goats  upon  the  left  hand,  and  the  sheep  upon 

the  right, 
And  the  choice  goes  by  forever  'twixt  that  darkness  and 

that  light." 

The  opportunity  to  decide  upon  your  patri- 
otic duty  will  go  as  quickly  as  it  may  come. 
Seize  it  for  yourselves,  seize  it  for  your  coun- 
try, seize  it  for  Columbia ! 


XI 
IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING? 


An  Address  delivered  at  the  Annual  Dinner  of  the 

Chamber  of  Commerce,  Pittsburgh,  Pa., 

February  lo,  191 7 


IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING? 

He  must  be  a  poor  and  an  unworthy  Ameri- 
can who  is  not  stirred  by  the  European  War 
and  its  lessons  to  serious  reflection  upon  prob- 
lems affecting  government  and  the  future  of 
civihzation  itself.  This  is  no  time  to  take 
things  for  granted.  The  great  historic  nations 
of  the  western  world,  those  which  have  for  two 
thousand  years  given  shape  and  form  and 
meaning  to  civilization  and  human  progress, 
are  shaken  to  their  very  depths.  Experiences 
which  might,  under  ordinary  conditions,  have 
extended  over  centuries,  are  being  compressed 
into  a  few  anxious  and  massively  important 
years.  No  belligerent  nation  will  emerge  from 
this  war  on  the  same  plane  as  that  on  which 
it  was  when  the  storm  of  war  broke  with  such 
startling  suddenness.  Political  institutions  are 
being  reshaped  under  the  pressure  of  impera- 
tive national  necessity  with  a  speed  and  com- 
pleteness that  have  no  precedent  in  history. 
Economic  and  industrial  relationships  of  long 
standing  and  great  authority  have  already  been 

IS3 


154  IS  AMERICA   DRIFTING? 

overturned  and  revolutionized.  New  and  grave 
seriousness  of  purpose,  new  and  severe  national 
self-examination,  have  taken  possession  of  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  highly  civilized  people, 
who  in  the  midsummer  of  1914  were  walking 
nonchalantly  along  the  paths  of  history  as  un- 
concerned, as  gay,  and  as  self-centred  as  a 
maiden  singing  on  a  country  road  in  summer- 
time. The  war  has  changed  everything.  Mi- 
nor differences  have  fallen  into  insignificance. 
Even  larger  differences  have  been  pressed  into 
the  background  by  the  unifying  force  of  stern 
national  necessity  and  conscious  national  pur- 
pose. Despite  their  tremendous  losses  in  men, 
in  treasure,  and  in  irreparable  monuments,  the 
chief  belligerent  nations  will  be  found  to  have 
gained  much  from  the  terrible  experiences  of 
this  devastating  war.  Their  gain  will  be  in 
the  larger  matters  of  national  policy  and  in 
matters  of  the  mind,  of  the  spirit,  of  individual 
and  national  character.  How  is  it  with  our 
neutral  and  aloof  America  I 

When  we  turn  our  eyes  from  the  battle-fields 
and  council  chambers  of  Europe  to  our  own 
land,  abounding  in  material  prosperity  and 
spared  the  terrible  cost  of  military  participa- 


IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING?  155 

tion  in  the  war,  what  do  we  find  that  in  any 
way  corresponds  to  the  changes  that  have  come 
over  European  opinion  and  European  policy  ? 
Are  we  Americans  learning  the  great  lessons 
that  the  war  has  to  teach,  or  are  we  so  self- 
confident,  so  self-centred,  and  so  self-opinion- 
ated that  we  think  Europe  has  nothing  to 
teach  ?  Are  we  conscious  of  a  distinct  national 
purpose  which  commands  our  universal  loyalty 
and  devotion,  or  are  we  drifting  on  a  sea  of 
irresolution,  divided  counsels,  and  conflicting 
policies  ?  It  is  worth  while  to  examine  this 
question  from  several  diff'erent  points  of  view. 

Our  representative  men  and  our  organs  of 
opinion,  both  in  high  places  and  in  low,  are 
speaking  and  writing  much  of  American  par- 
ticipation in  international  aff'airs,  of  American 
guidance  in  shaping  world  policy,  and  of  Ameri- 
can aid  in  securing  and  in  fixing  the  peace  of 
the  world.  Are  we  prepared  for  these  great 
undertakings  ?  Are  we  so  sure  of  our  own 
ground,  so  firm  and  so  clear  in  our  opinions, 
and  in  our  policies,  so  fortified  in  spirit  and  in 
material  preparation,  that  we  can  confidently 
accept    the    challenge    which    the    history    of 


iS6  IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING? 

Europe  is  making  to  our  purpose  and  our  com- 
petence as  a  nation  ? 

It  is  a  commonplace  that  democracies  find 
it  difficult  to  engage  effectively  in  international 
intercourse.  This  is  less  true  of  a  democracy 
like  the  French  Republic,  which  has  behind  it 
a  long  national  tradition,  than  of  one  like  our 
own,  which  is  even  yet  a  newcomer  in  the 
family  of  nations  that  lead  the  world.  Our 
form  of  government,  with  its  division  of  power 
and  responsibility  between  executive  and  legis- 
lature, between  the  nation  and  the  constituent 
States,  makes  difficulties  for  the  formulation 
and  execution  of  a  consistent  international  pol- 
icy such  as  no  other  government  in  the  world 
has  to  confront.  Indeed,  there  are  foreign 
nations  that  look  upoa  the  United  States  as  in 
high  degree  irresponsible  in  international  rela- 
tions, so  great  are  the  obstacles  which  our  tem- 
perament and  our  governmental  forms  put  in 
our  path  as  a  nation.  We  do  not  generally 
recognize  the  fact  that  our  form  of  government 
makes  possible  and  our  political  habits  make 
increasingly  frequent  the  modification  or  repeal 
of  explicit  treaty  provisions  by  a  subsequent 
act   of  Congress,   without   any  notice  to  the 


IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING?  157 

other  high  contracting  power.  We  do  not 
appear  to  take  account  of  the  fact  that  our 
form  of  government  permits  and  our  tempera- 
ment encourages  the  denial  by  a  State  legisla- 
ture or  other  local  authority  of  rights  secured 
to  aliens  by  the  solemn  act  of  the  treaty-mak- 
ing power.  The  government  of  the  United 
States  has  bound  itself  by  numerous  treaties 
to  give  rights  to  aliens  and  to  protect  those 
rights.  Despite  this  fact,  the  personal  and 
property  rights  of  ahens  have  been  repeatedly 
violated  in  the  United  States,  and  our  friendly 
relations  with  foreign  countries  have  thereby 
often  been  put  in  jeopardy.  The  list  of  unfor- 
tunate happenings  of  this  kind  in  recent  years 
is  a  disagreeably  long  one.  Within  the  mem- 
ory of  the  generation  now  living,  there  have 
been  outrageous  attacks  on  aliens  who  were 
entitled  by  treaty  to  our  protection,  in  Wyo- 
ming, in  Washington,  in  Idaho,  in  Montana,  in 
Oregon,  in  Alaska,  in  California,  in  Louisiana, 
in  Texas,  in  Colorado,  in  Mississippi,  and  in 
Florida.  It  has  been  asserted  that  in  the  pas- 
sage of  the  so-called  La  Follette  Shipping  Bill 
by  the  Congress  at  its  last  session,  more  than 
twenty  treaties  were  rudely  violated.     So  long 


158  IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING? 

as  these  conditions  continue  to  prevail,  we 
Americans  live  in  far  too  much  of  a  glass  house 
to  make  it  wise  to  throw  stones  at  other  nations 
who  refer  to  a  treaty  as  a  scrap  of  paper. 
There  are  orderly  and  proper  ways  to  modify 
or  even  to  abrogate  a  treaty  whose  provisions 
are  no  longer  sustained  by  American  public 
opinion,  and  it  is  this  orderly  and  proper  way 
that  should  invariably  be  taken  if  we  are  to 
have  and  to  exert  permanent  and  beneficial 
influence  in  the  council  of  the  nations.  A 
treaty  is  part  of  the  supreme  law  of  the  land 
and  must  be  respected  and  enforced  as  such. 

If  it  be  asked  how  are  conditions  to  be  bet- 
tered, the  answer  is,  by  a  more  intense,  a  more 
virile,  and  a  more  loyal  nationalism.  We  must 
be  Americans  first,  and  citizens  of  a  State  or 
residents  of  a  particular  community  afterward. 
We  must  give  to  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  through  the  passage  of  legislation  that 
has  been  recommended  by  Presidents  Harrison, 
McKinley,  Roosevelt,  and  Taft,  the  power 
which  it  does  not  at  present  possess,  to  protect 
the  treaty  rights  of  aliens  through  direct  action 
in  the  federal  courts.  At  the  present  time  the 
federal  officers  and  their  courts  have  no  power 


IS  AMERICA   DRIFTING?  159 

to  intervene,  either  for  the  protection  of  a 
foreign  citizen  or  for  the  punishment  of  those 
who  commit  an  outrage  against  him.  We 
must  learn  again  for  this  generation  and  for 
the  twentieth  century  the  lessons  of  the  Consti- 
tution and  "The  Federalist,"  the  lessons  of  the 
Civil  War  and  reconstruction.  Americans  must 
give  up  their  increasing  tendency  to  think  in 
terms  of  classes,  or  groups,  or  sections,  or 
States,  and  learn  to  think  nationally  in  terms 
of  the  whole  United  States,  its  aims,  its  inter- 
ests, and  its  honor.  When  America  speaks  or 
when  America  acts,  the  whole  world  should 
know  that  it  speaks  and  acts  as  a  nation  and 
not  as  a  series  of  conflicting  and  antagonistic 
groups  or  sections.  When  this  comes  to  pass 
we  shall  have  ceased  to  drift  in  our  interna- 
tional poHcies  and  relationships. 

If  America  is  drifting  in  regard  to  matters 
of  foreign  policy,  it  is  drifting,  too,  in  regard 
to  critically  important  matters  of  domestic 
concern.  Our  whole  industrial  system  will  be 
overturned  with  immense  loss  and  damage  to 
every  interest  unless  we  can  agree  upon  a 
policy  to  reconstruct  and  remodel  it  on  new 


i6o  IS  AMERICA   DRIFTING? 

and  sounder  lines.  Our  present  habit  is  to 
let  things  drift  until  some  acute  crisis  occurs, 
and  then  to  meet  it  by  surrender  or  by  compro- 
mise, without  any  regard  to  the  future,  but 
with  eyes  fixed  only  on  the  immediate  present. 
The  greater  part  of  the  public  seem  to  be 
utterly  oblivious  to  the  critical  position  in 
which  the  great  railway  systems  of  the  United 
States  have  been  put,  not  by  constructive  regu- 
lation or  governmental  supervision,  but  by 
policies  of  competing,  conflicting,  and  unrelated 
persecution  and  pin-pricking.  The  great  rail- 
ways of  the  United  States  are  national  assets 
and  they  constitute  the  arterial  system  of  our 
commercial  and  industrial  life.  They  are  ask- 
ing and  they  should  quickly  receive,  single, 
consistent,  and  well-ordered  constructive  over- 
sight and  regulation  from  the  national  govern- 
ment and  from  the  national  government  alone. 
It  was  local  interference  with  commerce  that 
led  directly  to  the  formation  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  It  is  local  interfer- 
ence with  commerce  that  now  constitutes  per- 
haps our  most  difficult  domestic  problem. 

Then,  too,  the  time  has  come  for  us  to  ac- 
knowledge the  primary  obligation  to  the  gen- 
eral public  that  rests  upon  every  participant  in 


IS  AMERICA   DRIFTING?  i6i 

any  enterprise  which  is  recognized  as  being 
invested  with  a  public  interest  and  which  is  to 
that  extent  under  pubHc  supervision  and  con- 
trol. If  our  national  sovereignty  is  not  to  be 
surrendered  to  a  group  or  an  economic  class, 
we  must  insist  upon  it  that  no  public  service 
shall  be  crippled  or  paralyzed  by  the  concerted 
act  of  a  group  of  individuals,  taken  without 
inquiry  on  the  part  of  public  officials  into  any 
alleged  grievance,  and  carried  on  without 
regard  to  the  overmastering  public  interests. 
In  a  peaceful  and  orderly  economic  state  there 
are  other  modes  of  rebellion  than  insurrection 
in  arms.  It  is  for  public  opinion  to  recognize 
and  to  define  these  modes  of  rebellion  against 
public  authority  and  to  find  ways  and  means, 
just,  kindly,  and  considerate,  of  dealing  with 
them.  When  any  individual  citizen  enters  the 
service  of  the  state,  either  directly  or  through 
some  form  of  public  service  that  the  state 
regulates,  he  does  so  not  through  compulsion, 
but  of  his  own  accord,  and  he  thereby  assumes 
a  kind  and  strength  of  obligation  which  does 
not  necessarily  rest  upon  his  fellow,  whose  oc- 
cupation lies  outside  of  government  or  of  gov- 
ernment-regulated activity. 

We  should   no  longer  hesitate  to  recognize 


i62  IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING? 

that  every  great  industry  and  every  great  cor- 
porate undertaking  is  primarily  something  hu- 
man, and  not  merely  something  mechanical, 
or  material,  or  financial.  It  is  not  first  of  all 
an  undertaking  for  gain,  but  it  is  first  of  all  an 
undertaking  in  which  human  beings  work  to- 
gether for  purposes  of  joint  and  common  inter- 
est. The  traditional  dogma  of  economists  that 
the  ultimate  agents  in  production  are  land, 
labor,  and  capital,  and  the  usual  corollary  that 
labor  and  capital  have  conflicting  and  mutually 
exclusive  interests  in  the  carrying  on  of  an 
industry,  have  done  an  immense  amount  of 
practical  harm.  Leaving  land  aside,  the  essen- 
tial elements  in  the  production  of  wealth  are 
all  human  beings  and  not  dead  abstractions 
to  be  spelled  with  a  capital  letter  and  treated 
as  if  they  had  neither  flesh  nor  blood.  It  would 
be  more  accurate  and  more  helpful  if  we  were 
to  classify  the  elements  that  enter  into  pro- 
ductive industry  in  threefold  fashion:  the  man 
who  works  with  his  hands,  the  man  who  works 
with  his  head,  and  the  man  who  works  with 
his  accumulations.  Sometimes  there  is  an 
overlapping  of  two  of  these  classes,  or  in  ex- 
treme cases  even  of  all  three  of  them,  but,  in 


IS  AMERICA   DRIFTING?  163 

general,  each  class  represents  a  separate  group 
in  the  industrial  system.  Each  member  of 
every  such  group  should  be  made  to  have  a 
common  interest  in  their  joint  product. 

It  Is  sound  economic  and  industrial  policy 
so  to  organize  industry  that  every  co-operating 
element  shall  have  a  personal  interest  in  its 
success  and  a  personal  share  in  its  gains.  There 
is,  of  course,  a  standard  or  prevailing  rate  of 
wage  for  the  man  who  works  with  his  hands,  a 
standard  or  prevailing  rate  of  salary  for  the 
man  who  works  with  his  head,  and  a  standard 
or  prevailing  rate  of  interest  for  the  man  who 
works  with  his  accumulations.  The  man  who 
works  with  his  accumulations  takes  the  great- 
est chance,  because  wages  and  salaries  must  of 
necessity  be  paid  before  his  interest  can  be 
provided  for.  With  a  view  to  humanizing  the 
great  industries  and  to  binding  every  worker 
more  closely  and  more  loyally  to  his  undertak- 
ing, to  giving  him  back  some  of  that  joy  in  the 
job  that  was  characteristic  of  the  hand-worker 
in  the  past,  why  should  it  not  be  agreed  that, 
when  the  stockholders  of  a  great  corporation 
receive  more  than  a  fixed  minimum  of  interest 
upon  their  investment,  a  similar  distribution 


i64  IS  AMERICA   DRIFTING? 

shall  be  made  in  terms  of  wages  and  of  salaries 
to  those  who  work  with  their  hands  and  with 
their  heads  ?  Instead  of  an  occasional  bonus 
given  as  a  favor  at  the  end  of  a  successful  year, 
why  should  there  not  be  a  fixed  percentage  of 
salaries  and  of  wages  paid  as  a  matter  of  right 
when  the  gains  of  an  industry  make  it  prac- 
ticable ?  When  there  is  an  extra  one  per  cent 
dividend  to  stockholders,  might  there  not  be 
an  extra  one  per  cent  paid  to  those  who  re- 
ceive wages  and  salaries  ?  Under  such  a  sys- 
tem every  member  of  an  industry,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  would  feel  a  new  pride 
in  its  increased  productiveness,  a  new  loyalty 
to  it,  a  new  interest  in  devices  for  saving  time 
and  eliminating  waste,  and  a  new  satisfaction 
in  increased  profits.  Why  should  we  not  leave 
off  living  on  the  edge  of  an  economic  and  in- 
dustrial volcano,  waiting  in  fear  and  trembling 
until  the  next  destructive  and  uncontrollable 
eruption  shall  occur,  and  settle  down  in  relative 
peace  and  quiet,  through  the  substitution  of 
some  such  definite  industrial  aim  as  the  one  I 
suggest,  conceived  in  human  terms,  for  the 
policy  of  drifting  which  now  governs  so  many 
of  our  economic  and  industrial  relationships  ? 


IS  AMERICA   DRIFTING?  165 

Such  an  aim  would  involve  questions  of  hous- 
ing, of  health,  of  education,  of  recreation,  of 
credit  for  long  service,  and  those  other  attri- 
butes of  decent  living  and  good  citizenship  which 
are  already  so  much  on  the  mind  of  many  great 
corporate  organizations  and  their  managers. 

There  is  still  another  question  that  is  divid- 
ing our  people  on  which  it  would  be  easy  to 
keep  silent.  It  is,  however,  in  my  judgment, 
more  honorable  and  more  courageous  for  one 
who  has  convictions  to  speak  them  out.  I 
refer  to  the  question  of  preparation  for  national 
service  under  national  control.  No  one  can 
possibly  hate  the  state  of  mind  and  the  spirit 
that  are  miUtarism  more  than  I  do,  and  no  one 
would  resist  more  actively  and  emphatically 
any  movement  to  change  the  peace-loving  in- 
dustrial spirit  and  temper  of  our  people  for 
any  of  the  older  forms  of  militarism  that  are 
now  slowly  going  to  their  death,  let  us  hope 
never  to  be  resurrected,  on  the  battle-fields  of 
Europe.  But  there  is  a  call  to  national  service 
and  a  preparation  for  it  which,  so  far  from 
sharing  the  spirit  of  militarism,  are  only  the 
voice  of  democracy  conscious  of  its  obligations 


i66  IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING? 

and  its  duties,  as  well  as  of  its  rights  and  op- 
portunities. We  speak  in  general  terms  of  the 
obligation  which  every  citizen  owes  to  his 
country,  but  what  have  we  done  to  make  that 
obligation  precise  and  to  fit  each  citizen  to  dis- 
charge it  ?  What  have  we  done  to  render  more 
than  lip-service  to  the  democratic  principle  ? 
Compulsion  is  not  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  democ- 
racy, although  democracy  uses  it  sparingly. 
Democracy  lays  its  hands  on  the  child,  and 
for  its  own  protection  as  well  as  for  his  good, 
says  that  he  and  his  parents  must  discharge  a 
certain  obligation  through  attendance  upon  the 
elementary  school.  Social,  economic,  and  po- 
litical conditions  are  so  varied  throughout  our 
land  that  the  results  of  this  policy  are  widely 
different  and  are  in  some  ways  far  from  satis- 
factory. This  is  not  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
policy  itself  is  unsound,  but  because  we  have 
not  yet  learned  how  most  wisely  to  administer 
it.  Through  compulsory  attendance  upon  the 
elementary  school  the  state  endeavors  to  pro- 
tect itself  and  each  individual  citizen  from  the 
dangers  and  limitations  that  attend  illiteracy 
and  the  lack  of  all  intellectual  and  moral  disci- 
pline.    In  the  light  of  our  present  experience. 


IS  AMERICA   DRIFTING?  167 

why  should  not  the  nation  say  to  every  youth 
approaching  manhood:  "We  beheve  it  to  be  in 
your  interest  and  in  ours  that  you  should  be 
required  for  a  limited  period  in  one  year,  or  in 
each  of  two  successive  years,  to  subject  your- 
self to  definite,  intensive,  continuous  training 
under  national  supervision  and  control,  in 
order  that  you  may  first  gain  a  new  and  vivid 
sense  of  the  meaning  and  obligations  of  your 
citizenship,  and  in  order  that  you  may,  in  the 
second  place,  be  physically  and  intellectually 
prepared  to  take  part  in  your  country's  service, 
physical  or  military,  should  occasion  for  that 
use  of  your  powers  ever  arise"  ?  In  our  recent 
discussions  we  have  been  thinking  too  largely 
of  national  service  and  of  preparation  for  such 
service  in  purely  military  terms.  This  is  easy 
to  Understand,  for  the  history  of  the  past  three 
years  has  forced  it  upon  us  as  a  people;  but,  if 
there  were  no  war  in  Europe,  and  if  there  were 
no  thought  or  need  of  preparation  for  war  else- 
where, this  need  for  the  preparation  of  every 
male  citizen  for  national  service  would  be  just 
as  real  and  just  as  pressing  as  I  believe  it  to  be 
to-day.  This  question  goes  to  the  very  roots 
of  an  effective  and  loyal  and  continuing  democ- 


1 68  IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING? 

racy.  It  can  be  shirked  if  you  will,  it  can  be 
compromised  if  you  will,  it  can  be  postponed 
if  you  will,  but  it  can  be  neither  shirked  nor 
compromised  nor  postponed  without  damage 
to  the  life  of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
Why  not  leave  off  drifting  and  have  a  definite, 
conscious  aim  in  our  preparation  for  the  full 
duties  of  citizenship  ? 

We  are  drifting,  too,  in  matters  of  public  ad- 
ministration. Taking  it  all  in  all,  our  govern- 
ment is  probably  the  most  incompetent  and 
most  costly  on  earth.  This  is  because  it  is  so 
largely  a  government  by  those  who  talk,  and 
that  we  have  been  so  successful  in  excluding 
from  it  those  who  think  and  those  who  do. 
We  pay  enough  in  taxes,  and  far  more  than 
enough,  to  get  thoroughly  satisfactory  admin- 
istration of  the  public  business;  but  we  do  not 
get  this  because  competent  administrators  so 
rarely  concern  themselves  with  government  or 
are  chosen  to  responsible  legislative  or  execu- 
tive office.  If  the  government  of  the  United 
States  were  run  in  accordance  with  those  prin- 
ciples which  control  the  activity  of  any  great 
non-governmental    undertaking,    from    a    steel 


IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING?  169 

corporation  to  a  university,  it  would  be  the 
envy  and  the  admiration  of  the  world.  I  do 
not  recall  that  any  great  administrator  has 
ever  been  chosen  to  be  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  few  governors  or  mayors  seem  to 
take  any  interest  in  the  improvement  of  ordi- 
nary administration,  such  as  every  manager  of 
an  industrial  or  business  undertaking  concerns 
himself  with  every  day  and  every  hour.  A 
man  who  had  in  his  own  person  been  successful 
and  competent  in  the  administration  of  a  great 
business,  whether  it  be  a  railroad,  or  a  bank,  or 
a  manufacturing  corporation,  or  a  steamship 
company,  or  anything  else,  might,  if  elected  to 
the  presidency  of  the  United  States,  accomplish 
a  really  wonderful  service  for  our  people.  Four 
years,  or  even  eight  years,  would  be  all  too 
short  to  cleanse  the  Augean  stables  of  waste 
and  incompetence,  duplication  and  inefficiency, 
which  make  Washington  notorious,  but  eight 
years,  or  even  four  years,  might  be  enough  to 
make  a  beginning  which  would  so  appeal  to 
the  people  of  the  United  States  that  they  would 
compel  its  continuance  at  the  hands  of  any 
party  which  might  happen  to  be  successful  in 
a  subsequent  election. 


I70  IS  AMERICA  DRIFTING? 

We  are  so  concerned  with  our  personal  affairs, 
with  our  personal  undertakings,  and  with  our 
immediate  interests  that  we  are  letting  America 
drift.  We  give  the  feeblest  possible  support 
to  the  able  and  conscientious  men  who,  here 
and  there  in  the  executive  departments  and  in 
the  national  legislature,  are  doing  their  best  to 
bear  the  heavy  burden  that  has  been  put  upon 
them.  When  such  a  man  is  sent  to  Washing- 
ton, we  leave  him  alone  to  fight  our  battles  and 
his  as  best  he  can,  and  to  face  unaided  the 
forces  of  stagnation,  routine,  and  selfishness. 
Once  every  four  years  we  arouse  from  our  leth- 
argy for  a  few  weeks,  and  give  more  or  less 
emotional  expression  to  our  aspirations  and 
convictions;  but  when  once  the  presidential 
election  is  over,  we  return  to  our  several 
ploughs  and  America  drifts  again.  What  is 
everybody's  business  is  nobody's  business. 
Until  every  American  feels  his  personal  respon- 
sibility for  the  formulation  of  definite  public 
poHcy  at  home  and  abroad,  and  for  the  busi- 
nessHke  administration  of  public  affairs,  Amer- 
ica will  continue  to  drift,  and  the  rest  of  the 
world  will  continue  to  treat  her  as  the  spoiled 
child  of  the  goddess  of  good  fortune. 


XII 
LOOKING   FORWARD 


An  Address  delivered  before  the  Commercial  Club, 
Cincinnati,  Ohio,  April  21,  1917 


LOOKING  FORWARD 

This  is  a  time  when  any  one  who  rises  to 
speak  in  public  to  his  fellow  Americans  must 
do  so  with  a  feeling  of  heavy  responsibility. 
There  never  was  a  time  when  there  was  so 
much  that  might  be  said;  there  perhaps  never 
was  a  time  when  it  was  so  difficult  to  say  it 
freely,  because  the  issue  of  the  great  struggle 
in  which  this  world  is  engaged,  despite  all  ap- 
pearances, still  trembles  in  the  balance.  An 
unfortunate  or  an  unhappy  sentiment  publicly 
expressed  even  by  a  private  citizen  might  be 
found  to  do  great  damage  to  the  precious  cause 
which  every  American  and  every  citizen  of  the 
world  has  so  closely  at  heart. 

I  remember  the  description  which  my  father 
gave  to  me,  such  as  your  fathers  must  have 
given  to  many  of  you,  of  the  state  of  feeling 
in  this  nation  when  Fort  Sumter  was  fired  on, 
and  when  the  existence  of  this  government,  the 
integrity  of  the  institutions  that  had  been 
builded  by  the  fathers,  was  suddenly  put  at 
stake.     I  confess  to  having  had  that  kind  of 

173 


174  LOOKING  FORWARD 

feeling  when  I  read  that  enemy  troops  had  in- 
vaded Belgium;  and  I  confess  to  having  had  it 
in  redoubled  measure,  and  in  a  way  that  stirred 
every  feeling  and  sentiment  that  I  possess, 
when  I  read  with  you  the  awful  news  of  the 
sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  There  will  not  be 
years  enough  left  in  my  life  to  dim  the  memory 
of  the  feelings  which  those  events  stirred  in  me, 
of  the  trains  of  thought  which  they  opened,  of 
the  lines  of  policy  which  they  suggested,  of  the 
great  series  of  problems  which  from  that  day 
to  this  have  been  unrolled  before  the  world. 
There  is  no  use  just  now  in  looking  back.  The 
past  has  made  its  own  record.  It  belongs  to 
history.  In  the  generations  that  are  to  come 
careful  students  of  the  documents  will  extract 
from  the  record,  and  put  where  all  mankind 
may  forever  see,  the  precise  story  of  the  events 
that  mark  the  cataclysm  which  began  on 
August  I,  1914,  and  the  end  of  which  is  not 
yet  in  sight. 

That,  I  say,  belongs  to  history;  but  we  as 
Americans,  as  lovers  of  liberty,  as  citizens  of 
the  world,  as  lovers  of  our  kind  of  every  race 
and  every  speech,  are  concerned  with  what  lies 
in  front  of  us.     We  are  concerned  not  alone 


LOOKING  FORWARD  175 

with  the  national  task  but  with  the  interna- 
tional happenings;  and  we  are  concerned  not 
alone  with  the  winning — the  prompt,  complete, 
and  decisive  winning — of  this  war;  but  we  are 
concerned  with  the  reconstruction  of  the  politi- 
cal organization  of  the  world  that  shall  make 
place,  ample  place,  for  those  people  who  are 
to-day  our  enemies,  and  at  the  same  time  pre- 
vent so  far  as  human  power  and  human  fore- 
sight can  prevent,  the  happening  again  of  any- 
thing to  be  compared  with  this. 

If  we  could  imagine  ourselves  equipped  with 
the  modern  press,  the  telegraph,  the  telephone, 
steam,  and  electricity,  we  might  have  been 
present  at  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  and 
yet  have  witnessed  nothing  equal  to  this.  We 
might  under  similar  circumstances  have  been 
present  over  three  hundred  years  at  the  Revival 
of  Learning  and  yet  have  witnessed  nothing 
comparable  to  this. 

Every  great  struggle  in  this  world  is  a  strug- 
gle of  ideas.  Mere  brute  force  is  only  the  sym- 
bol of  a  wrong  idea,  or  of  a  paucity  of  ideas. 
The  struggle  is  in  essence  between  ideas,  and 
not  always  do  those  who  are  conducting  it  ap- 
preciate or  realize  that  they  are  the  bearers  of 


176  LOOKING  FORWARD 

the  hopes  or  the  hates  of  men.  But  when  we 
look  back  to  interpret  the  happenings  of  the 
past  two  thousand  years,  we  see  that  in  so  far 
as  the  battle-fields  of  the  world  and  the  great 
military  contests  have  not  been  purely  dynas- 
tic, or  personal,  or  predatory  in  character,  they 
represented  a  conflict  of  ideas  and  of  ideals. 

Several  times  the  history  of  this  world  has 
hung  on  the  point  of  a  spear.  Each  time  the 
overruling  Providence  which  guides  and  makes 
history  has  seen  to  it  that  the  solution  was 
toward  the  greater  freedom,  the  greater  prog- 
ress, the  greater  liberty,  the  greater  enfran- 
chisement of  man. 

It  was  a  very  small  group  of  men,  compara- 
tively, that  landed  from  Persian  ships  on  the 
immortal  plains  of  Marathon;  but  if  that  little 
battle  had  gone  differently  the  philosophy,  the 
civilization,  and  the  institutions  of  Asia  would 
have  made  western  Europe  their  own,  and  this 
continent  would  have  been  colonized  fifteen 
hundred  years  afterward,  if  at  all,  by  men  who 
professed  the  philosophy,  the  politics,  and  the 
religion  of  those  Asiatic  peoples. 

Time  and  time  again,  sometimes  on  a  nar- 
row field,  sometimes  in  a  mountain  pass,  some- 


LOOKING  FORWARD  177 

times  at  a  Gettysburg,  men  have  been  thrown 
against  each  other  in  larger  or  in  smaller  mass, 
and  the  stake  of  victory  was  the  world's  policy 
or  the  Hfe  of  a  nation. 

This  controversy  was  apparently  so  simple  in 
its  origins — an  ultimatum  to  Serbia,  an  answer, 
a  declaration  of  war,  a  Russian  mobilization,  a 
German  mobilization,  a  French  mobilization, 
an  invasion  of  Belgium,  an  English  mobiliza-. 
tion,  and  the  world  was  in  flames.  Because 
that  contest  was  apparently  so  simply  begun, 
what  was  involved  was  hidden  from  the  people 
of  this  nation.  It  has  taken  us  two  long  years 
and  a  half  to  see  that  behind  those  struggling 
heroes  that  wear  the  uniform  of  France,  and 
behind  that  great,  silent,  powerful  British  navy, 
were  protected  the  Constitution  and  the  laws 
of  these  United  States.  No  war  was  being 
made  on  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  these 
United  States;  but  war  was  being  made  on  the 
ideas  upon  which  that  Constitution  and  those 
laws  are  based,  and  upon  which  alone  they 
could  be  based  and  survive !  This  is  therefore 
a  war  of  high  principle  and  in  no  sense  a  war 
of  conquest.  Let  us  never  sing  a  hymn  of 
hate  to  those  who  are  for  the  moment  worship- 


178  LOOKING  FORWARD 

ping  a  false  god.  A  hymn  of  hate  is  just  as 
unlovely  when  sung  in  English  as  in  German. 
It  is  too  solemn,  it  is  too  stupendous  a  con- 
troversy for  hate;  because  if  its  issue  be  as  we 
would  have  it,  we  shall  lift  another  people  to 
this  high  plane — a  people  at  this  moment  in 
mighty  arms  against  us. 

Then  we  see  what,  at  bottom .?  It  is  said 
that  we  see  a  conflict  between  autocracy  and 
democracy,  between  despotism  and  liberty. 
We  do;  but  we  see  something  far  more  subtle 
than  that.  We  see  a  conflict  between  two  the- 
ories of  politically  organized  man,  one  written 
in  undying  words  in  our  own  Declaration  of 
Independence,  that  all  governments  derive 
"their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed";  and  the  other  based  on  the  theory 
of  a  state  all-powerful,  unrestrained,  superior 
to  the  limitations  of  law  and  morality,  having 
a  high  end  of  its  own  which  no  power  can  re- 
strain except  by  force,  and  which  must  sustain 
and  extend  itself  by  force.  What  is  challenged 
in  this  contest  is  the  Preamble  to  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  of  the  United  States. 

That  is  why  this  has  never  been  a  European 
war.     It  began  in  Europe;  but  it  never  was  a 


LOOKING  FORWARD  179 

European  war.  It  might  have  been  a  Euro- 
pean war  if  this  country  were  a  desert;  but  it 
could  not  be  a  European  war  so  long  as  this 
country  is  concerned  with  ideas  of  government. 
The  slow  process  of  a  glacier  takes  time;  but 
you  have  seen  in  the  heights  of  the  Alps,  or  in 
our  own  northwestern  mountains,  its  slow, 
creeping  progress  toward  the  overwhelming 
destruction  of  everything  that  stands  in  its 
way.  This  theory  of  an  all-powerful,  non- 
moral  state,  having  its  own  rights  self-given, 
not  dependent  on  the  just  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned, armed  with  force  and  proceeding  by 
might,  would  in  time,  unrestrained  and  unre- 
stricted, like  the  glacier,  have  crept  down  the 
valleys  of  this  western  world  and  reduced  them 
to  sterile  subjection  to  its  might.  I  blame  no 
individual  human  being  for  this  war.  I  seek 
to  bring  no  individuals  to  the  bar  of  judgment, 
because  I  believe  that  ideas  are  so  much  more 
powerful  than  individuals  that  when  they  get 
those  individuals  in  their  grasp  the  latter  are 
simply  instruments  of  those  stupendous  forces 
struggling  for  the  mastery  of  the  mind  and  the 
conscience  of  man.  It  is  that  which  we  have 
been  looking  out  upon.     It  is  that  which  by 


i8o  LOOKING  FORWARD 

one  happening  and  one  act  after  another,  here 
a  little,  there  a  Httle,  has  brought  this  glacier 
more  and  more  close  to  the  land  on  which  we 
stand,  until  finally  the  eyes  of  our  people  are 
opened  and  they  see  that  they  are  concerned, 
deeply,  nationally,  and  individually  concerned 
in  this  contest,  because  their  ideals  are  at  stake. 

Why  should  we  have  taken  so  long  ?  Why 
should  it  have  been  hidden  from  us  for  two 
years  and  a  half,  that  this  war  was  ours,  was 
all  the  world's;  was  a  war  on  democracy  and 
liberaHsm  in  Japan;  on  the  rising  movement  of 
democracy  and  liberalism  in  Spain  and  the 
South  American  republics,  as  well  as  on  the 
United  States  and  every  land  where  these  ideals 
are  cherished;  why  should  it  have  taken  so 
long  ?  The  answer  hurts  one  to  give.  It  took 
so  long  because  for  a  generation,  with  all  our 
changes  and  chances,  we  as  a  people  have  been 
living  in  the  lap  of  material  luxury  and  gain, 
and  we  had  almost  forgotten  our  soul.  We 
had  almost  forgotten  the  soul  of  this  nation. 

Turn  back,  when  opportunity  serves,  to  the 
congressional  and  public  debates  and  orations 
of  the  first  forty  years  of  our  nation's  life. 
There  you  will  find  the  record  of  the  spoken 


LOOKING  FORWARD  i8i 

words  of  men  of  every  party,  of  every  section, 
of  all  shades  of  opinion  and  belief;  and  through 
all  their  sentences  and  paragraphs  there  shines 
a  soul.  They  knew  that  the  body  of  this  na- 
tion needed  a  soul  to  make  it  live.  They  had 
a  clear  conception  of  that  soul,  and  they  saw 
to  it  that  this  nation's  body  was  given  a  soul. 

We  had  almost  forgotten  our  soul.  We  had 
apparently  gotten  to  a  point  where  we  seemed 
to  think  that  the  world  would  go  on  no  matter 
what  we  did;  that  somebody  else  would  take 
care  of  liberty,  somebody  else  would  take  care 
of  justice,  somebody  else  would  take  care  of 
freedom,  somebody  else  would  take  care  of 
the  open  sea,  somebody  else  would  take  care 
of  the  world's  peace;  and  that  we  individually 
could  go  about  our  several  businesses  and  let 
that  "somebody"  run  the  world!  It  cannot 
be  done !  No  way  has  been  found  in  a  democ- 
racy of  hiring  Hessians  to  govern  us;  we  must 
either  govern  ourselves,  or  drift  on  the  tide  of 
helpless  serfdom  to  those  peoples  and  those 
nations  which  are  willing,  as  well  as  able,  to 
govern. 

Finally  we  have  seen  this  vision;  and  now, 
thank  God  !  the  American  people,  conscious  of 


i82  LOOKING  FORWARD 

their  soul,  are  hurrying  to  points  of  vantage 
from  which  they  can  look  forward.  They  are 
sure  of  the  past,  and  they  are  eagerly  question- 
ing the  future,  each  according  to  his  kind,  as 
to  what  it  holds  in  store  for  men  and  for  na- 
tions, and  particularly  for  this  dear  nation  of 
ours. 

I  said  a  moment  ago  that  even  after  these 
two  years  and  a  half,  and  despite  the  happen- 
ings of  recent  weeks,  the  event  still  hangs  in 
the  balance.  It  does.  It  hangs  in  the  balance 
for  two  reasons:  first,  no  adequate  means  has 
yet  been  found  by  any  belligerent,  or  group  of 
belligerents,  effectively  to  cope  with  the  de- 
struction of  tonnage  by  the  submarine.  Sir 
Edward  Carson,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Admi- 
ralty, stated,  speaking  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons the  other  day,  that  in  the  time  under 
review  forty  combats  with  submarines  had 
taken  place,  and  he  left  it  to  be  inferred  that 
most  or  all  of  them  had  been  successful;  but 
the  fact  of  the  matter  is,  as  every  man  inter- 
.  ested  in  the  world's  shipping  knows,  that  with 
the  withdrawal  of  tonnage  from  commerce  for 
the  customary  purposes  of  war,  with  the  lock- 
ing up  of  tonnage  owing  to  internment,  high 


LOOKING  FORWARD  183 

rates  of  insurance,  and  danger  from  submarine 
attack,  and  with  the  actual  destruction  of 
tonnage  which  goes  on  week  by  week,  it  is  not 
yet  certain  that  that  particular  mode  of  war- 
fare will  not  prove  even  more  powerful  than 
has  been  supposed.  Let  me  give  one  illustra- 
tion. 

There  has  been  comment  and  discussion  as 
to  the  relation  of  Italy  to  this  war.  Why  has 
not  Italy,  populous,  well  to  do,  with  a  large 
and  well-trained  army,  made  more  contribu- 
tion to  the  aUied  cause  through  effective  mili- 
tary operations  ?  There  are  political  explana- 
tions into  which  I  shall  not  enter;  but  I  will 
give  you  one  economic  explanation.  Italy  is 
paralyzed  from  the  mountains  to  the  sea  from 
the  lack  of  coal.  Italy  imports  in  normal  times 
ten  million  tons  of  coal  a  year.  When  the  war 
broke  out  the  English  government  agreed  to 
furnish  five  million  tons;  and  at  once  Italy  had 
to  reduce  by  50  per  cent  its  coal  consumption, 
even  at  a  time  when  an  enormous  increase  was 
demanded  for  the  manufacture  of  munitions. 
Now  England  has  had  to  serve  Italy  notice 
that  no  more  coal  can  be  delivered  unless  Italy 
can  provide  the  bottoms.     That  is  a  situation 


i84  LOOKING  FORWARD 

which  does  not  He  on  the  surface,  but  is  one 
of  the  economic  facts  out  of  which  the  problems 
of  this  war  have  so  largely  arisen.  I  have  cited 
that  as  one  illustration,  to  which  others  might 
be  added. 

A  second  matter  relates  to  Russia.  If  the 
provisional  government  of  Russia  is  able  to 
maintain  itself,  and  if  its  army  holds  firm  on 
the  eastern  front,  there  is  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  the  war  may  be  ended  successfully 
within  a  reasonable  time,  say  within  the  pres- 
ent calendar  year.  But  if  the  morale  of  the 
Russian  army  is  broken,  or  if  by  communistic 
outbreak  such  as  took  place  in  Paris  in  the 
winter  and  spring  of  1871  following  the  Ger- 
man occupation,  the  hand  of  the  provisional 
government  should  be  paralyzed;  if  the  Central 
Powers  were  to  obtain  possession  of  the  agri- 
cultural and  manufacturing  resources  of  Rus- 
sia, this  war  might  go  on  for  years. 

To  sit  here  in  comfort  and  suppose  that  be- 
cause these  magnificent  men  of  whose  efforts 
we  read  with  such  anxious  and  joyous  care 
every  morning  and  every  night,  are  doing  such 
splendid  things  along  the  western  front  that 
there  is  nothing  for  us  to  do,  that  we  can  sim- 


LOOKING  FORWARD  185 

ply  ride  upon  the  field  at  the  eleventh  hour 
and  share  in  the  acclaim  of  the  victors,  is  abso- 
lutely false.  Nothing  if  persisted  in  could  be 
more  disastrous. 

This  one  hundred  millions  of  people  has  got 
to  go  to  war.  It  will  not  do  to  saunter  into 
war.  It  will  not  do  simply  to  increase  the  in- 
come tax,  to  make  a  huge  loan,  and  to  read 
about  war.  War,  with  all  its  terrors,  with  all 
its  horrors,  with  all  its  obligations,  is  on  in 
this  country,  and  our  country's  existence  hangs 
in  the  balance.  The  American  who  cannot  see 
that  cannot  read  the  plainest  signs  of  the  times; 
for  even  ideas,  however  powerful,  however 
splendid,  however  noble,  however  uplifting — 
even  ideas  will  not  walk  alone!  Even  ideas 
will  not  provide  Italy  with  coal;  even  ideas  will 
not  cover  the  ocean  with  ships;  even  ideas  will 
not  grow  a  food  supply  adequate  for  this  na- 
tion and  for  export;  even  ideas  and  speeches 
will  not  fulfil  our  obligations  to  those  nations 
and  those  men  who  in  darkness  and  in  daylight 
have  been  fighting  for  your  property  and  mine, 
for  your  government  and  mine,  for  your  ideas 
and  mine ! 

It  is  essential  to  the  soul  of  the  United  States 


i86  LOOKING  FORWARD 

that  it  should  express  itself  in  terms  that  his- 
tory will  not  misunderstand.  It  is  essential  to 
the  soul  of  the  United  States  that  we  should 
make  use,  in  the  aid  and  interest  of  our  fellows 
as  well  as  of  ourselves,  of  the  great  experience, 
the  great  opportunity,  the  great  blessings,  of 
the  past  century  and  a  half. 

We  are  trustees  of  a  great  and  sacred  trust. 
We  have  been  given  by  Providence  out  of  the 
womb  of  time  this  government  with  all  its 
potentiality,  with  all  its  accomplishment,  and 
with  all  its  promise;  and  the  question  that 
comes  home  at  this  hour  with  burning  force  to 
every  American  is,  how  am  I  discharging  my 
trusteeship .?  Not  what  is  somebody  else  do- 
ing!— not  what  is  somebody  else  doing!  Not 
what  is  the  President  doing,  not  what  is  the 
Congress  doing,  not  what  is  the  French  army 
doing,  not  what  is  the  British  navy  doing — 
but  what  am  I  as  trustee  doing  to  preserve, 
to  protect,  and  to  perpetuate  those  ideals  of 
government  in  which  we  not  only  believe  as 
unassailable  truths,  but  which  we  in  our  heart 
of  hearts  are  convinced  give  the  largest  measure 
of  promise  to  every  people  on  this  earth  who 
will  embrace  them  and  make  them  their  own. 


LOOKING  FORWARD  187 

We  look,  then,  into  the  future  clothed  with 
a  heavy  and  a  solemn  obligation;  an  obligation 
not  simply  to  support  the  government — for 
that  is  conventional  and  banal — but  with  an 
obligation  for  personal  service  with  head  and 
heart  and  hand,  in  each  and  every  one  of  those 
ways  that  shall  contribute  to  the  establishment 
of  a  just  peace,  durable  because  based  on  sound 
and  lasting  principles,  a  peace  which  will  sup- 
press and  oppress  no  man  and  no  nation,  how- 
ever it  may  be  defeated  in  this  war. 

There  are  some  things  that  follow  from  that 
argument  as  necessary  corollaries.  I  should 
like  to  address  myself  for  a  moment  or  two  to 
a  contention  frequently  made  in  public  that 
we  have  no  concern  with  Europe,  that  we  are 
isolated  from  its  controversies  and  its  contests, 
and  that  Washington  himself,  our  most  august 
American,  specifically  warned  us  against  "en- 
tangling alhances."  He  did.  But  the  most 
entangling  alliance  this  nation  could  make 
would  be  an  alliance  with  itself  to  cut  itself  ofF 
from  the  whole  wide  world  !  George  Washing- 
ton warned  us  against  entangling  alliances  with 
individual  nations  against  other  nations — and 
he  was  right !    We  have  never  departed  from 


1 88  LOOKING  FORWARD 

that  counsel,  and  I  see  no  reason  in  the  history 
of  the  intervening  years,  or  in  the  outlook  for 
the  future,  to  suppose  that  we  should  so  depart. 
But  an  alliance  with  one  nation  against  another 
nation  Is  quite  a  different  thing  from  standing 
upright  among  our  fellow  men  to  bear  our  full 
responsibility  for  the  perpetuity  of  the  world's 
freedom  and  civilization.     What  sort  of  figure 
should  we  cut  in  history  if  a  thousand  years 
from  now  some  far-off  scholar  looks  back  upon 
us  with  his  telescope  and  writes  the  history  of 
the  twentieth  century  A.  D.,  and  finds  a  stu- 
pendous struggle  for  liberty,  for  the  rights  of 
small  nations,  for  the  maintenance  of  public 
law  and  treaty  obligations,  going  on  in  Europe, 
and  a  hundred  millions  of  contented,  self-sat- 
isfied people  sitting  away  across  three  thousand 
miles  of  sea,  and  saying  like  the  Pharisee  of 
old:  "I  am  not  as  these  men  are,  I  am  relieved 
from  any  responslbihty  for  what  they  may  say 
or  do"?     Our  fathers  came  to  this  continent 
to  achieve  something  not  for  themselves  alone. 
Read  every  word  they  ever  wrote.     Read  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  read  the  Consti- 
tution, read  those  immortal  words  that  can  be 
printed  on  the  palm  of  the  hand  that  were 


LOOKING  FORWARD  189 

spoken  to  you  yonder  at  Gettysburg,  and  see 
whether  that  program  of  American  policy  is  a 
selfish  program,  or  whether  it  is  a  program  of 
service  to  mankind  ? 

No;  steam,  electricity,  conimerce,  travel,  fi- 
nance, literature,  science,  the  spread  of  ideas, 
the  zeal  for  the  very  things  that  we  believe  in, 
have  unified  this  round  world  into  one  family 
of  nations,  into  one  human  society;  and,  as 
Mazzini  said  a  generation  ago:  "Thank  God, 
the  philosophy  of  Cain  has  passed  out  of  this 
world  forever !  We  are  our  brothers'  keepers.'* 
We  are  with  them  the  keepers  of  an  idea;  and 
we  can  no  more,  in  honor  or  in  conscience  or 
consistently  with  our  history,  shirk  this  respon- 
sibihty  than  we  can  give  the  He  to  our  spoken 
word  or  written  bond;  far  less  so,  for  that  would 
be  a  personal  failing  and  a  personal  crime  or 
sin,  while  this  would  be  a  great  public  crime 
committed  in  the  forum  of  human  history  and 
in  the  full  sight  of  every  immortal  soul  that 
has  gone  before,  and  would  continue  to  be  so 
regarded  by  every  human  being  that  remains 
to  be  born  upon  this  earth.  We  dare  not,  gen- 
tlemen, we  dare  not ! 

We  have  ourselves  in  our  earlier  public  policy 


IQO  LOOKING  FORWARD 

done  nobler  things  than  that.  Our  fathers, 
and  our  fathers'  fathers,  were  in  the  closest 
relation  with  the  political  and  international 
happenings  of  Europe.  What  about  the  influ- 
ence of  Benjamin  Franklin,  of  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son, of  John  Quincy  Adams,  of  Chancellor  Liv- 
ingston, of  Henry  Clay,  and  of  the  whole  series 
of  great  men  who  laid  the  foundations  on  which 
we  are  building  bit  by  bit  the  superstructure? 
Do  not  forget  that  the  name  that  has  most 
enchained  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  next  only  to  Washington  and 
Lincoln  themselves,  is  the  name  of  La  Fayette. 
When  he  came  back,  an  aging  man,  to  visit  the 
country  that  he  had  helped  to  save  and  to 
make,  his  was  a  triumphal  progress  from  capital 
to  capital  and  from  city  to  city.  I  venture  to 
say  that  at  this  moment  there  are  probably 
more  counties,  towns,  and  villages  in  the 
United  States  that  bear  the  name  of  La  Fayette 
than  bear  the  name  of  any  other  human  being. 
That  testifies  to  the  relationship  a  century  ago. 
When  Kossuth,  the  Hungarian  liberal  and 
revolutionist,  came  to  this  country,  everything 
was  done  to  welcome  him  to  the  United  States 
because  he  was  rebelling  against  a  tyrannical 


LOOKING  FORWARD  191 

government  at  home.  Those  fathers  felt  the 
electric  spark  of  sympathy  with  an  idea;  and 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  give  it  expression  in 
the  written  and  the  spoken  word. 

No,  gentlemen,  what  cut  us  off  from  our  just 
relations  to  the  civilized  world  was  our  own 
unhappy  division  over  slavery,  and  the  result- 
ing war  between  the  States.  That  was  the 
knife  which  severed  the  bond  that  had  from 
the  very  beginning  united  us  in  sympathy  and 
in  understanding  to  the  older  civilization. 
What  we  are  doing  now  is  not  for  an  instant 
anything  new,  not  for  an  instant  anything 
revolutionary.  We  are  repairing  the  damage 
wrought  by  that  great  civil  dissension;  we  are 
going  back  to  our  just  place  as  lovers  and  recog- 
nizers of  liberty,  and  showing  ourselves  ready 
and  willing  to  stretch  a  hand  across  any  sea 
to  those  who  battle  for  our  ideas,  and  therefore 
for  us !     That  is  traditional  American  policy. 

Let  no  man  who  has  only  read  fifty  years  of 
American  history,  who  has  only  seen  the  cur- 
tain that  we  let  fall  between  the  two  acts,  at- 
tempt to  introduce  us  to  the  subject-matter  of 
the  drama.  The  drama,  the  great  world  drama, 
goes  on  everlastingly.     Our  relation  to  it  is  a 


192  LOOKING  FORWARD 

matter  for  our  intelligence  and  our  conscience 
and  our  sense  of  high  principle.  Do  you  realize 
that  the  world  owes  to  us — looking  now  to  the 
credit  side  of  the  account  for  a  moment — do 
you  realize  that  the  world  owes  to  us  very 
much  of  the  progress  which  had  already  been 
made  toward  international  organization  when 
this  war  broke  out  ?  The  great  importance  in 
history,  in  American  history,  of  the  two  Hague 
Conferences  of  1899  and  1907  does  not  seem 
to  be  generally  recognized.  The  Conference  of 
1899  was  called  by  the  Tsar  of  Russia  to  dis- 
cuss disarmament.  The  United  States  was 
represented  by  a  distinguished  delegation. 
When  the  nations  assembled  at  The  Hague  they 
soon  discovered  through  interchange  of  views 
on  the  part  of  their  representatives  that  dis- 
armament was  impossible  and  impracticable. 
They  discovered  what  any  man,  I  think,  who 
examines  that  question  candidly  will  discover, 
that  armaments,  while  the  instruments  of  war, 
are  not  the  causes  of  war,  and  that  to  take 
away  the  instruments  and  leave  the  causes 
would  mean  to  expose  this  world  to  still  more 
dreadful,  still  more  costly,  still  more  inhuman 
wars.     Therefore,  they  said:  "We  cannot  dis- 


LOOKING  FORWARD  193 

arm;  let  us  adjourn."  The  American  delega- 
tion said:  "No;  do  not  adjourn.  Cannot  we 
do  something,  make  some  sHght  progress  toward 
the  prevention  of  war  .?  Cannot  we  take  some 
step  that  will  make  these  tremendous  outbursts 
less  likely  .?"  And  the  project  was  brought  for- 
ward for  a  Court  of  Arbitration.  It  was  dis- 
cussed for  some  time;  it  was  accepted  by  France 
and  by  Great  Britain,  and  by  other  nations; 
it  was  strongly  opposed  by  the  representatives 
of  the  German  Empire.  Then  happened  this: 
Doctor  Andrew  D.  White,  clarum  et  venerahile 
nomen,  the  senior  member  of  the  American 
delegation,  formerly  Minister  at  the  Court  of 
Berlin,  wrote  a  personal  letter  to  the  German 
Emperor  and  pleaded  with  him  for  the  sake  of 
the  future  to  instruct  the  German  delegates  to 
alter  their  attitude.  That  letter  was  intrusted 
to  the  secretary  of  the  American  delegation, 
the  late  Frederick  W.  Holls,  unfortunately  gone 
from  earth  all  too  soon  to  render  the  splendid 
services  to  the  better  organization  of  the  world 
of  which  he  was  capable.  In  a  two  days'  inter- 
view with  the  German  Emperor  and  Prince  von 
Buelow,  Count  von  Buelow  as  he  was  then, 
that  letter  of  Doctor  White's,  aided  by  the 


194  LOOKING  FORWARD 

personal  influence  of  Mr.  Holls,  brought  about 
instructions  from  the  German  Emperor  to  the 
German  delegation  at  The  Hague  to  change 
their  attitude.  They  did  change  it;  and  the 
first  Court  of  Arbitral  Justice  was  established. 
The  United  States  made  that  contribution 
toward  the  better  organization  of  the  world. 
Some  day  that  letter  of  Doctor  White's  will  be 
seen  to  have  been  an  epoch-making  one  in  the 
history  of  American  diplomacy  and  in  the  his- 
tory of  international  organization.  Then  the 
Conference  adjourned.  There  were  those  who 
said  in  America  and  in  Europe:  "The  Confer- 
ence has  been  a  failure.  Why  try  to  put  life 
into  this  chimerical  idea?"  But  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  hurried 
before  that  court  the  Pious  Fund  case  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico,  and  gave  an 
impressive  lesson  to  the  world  of  two  sovereign 
nations  submitting  a  claim  involving  their  sov- 
ereign rights  to  the  decision  of  five  private  gen- 
tlemen in  black  coats  at  the  Dutch  capital. 
Again  the  United  States  had  made  a  powerful 
contribution  to  the  organization  of  the  world. 
A  few  years  ago  it  was  my  privilege  to  sit 
for  a  time  in  the  Court  at  The  Hague,  and  I 


LOOKING  FORWARD  195 

saw  what  I  shall  always  remember  as  one  of 
the  most  impressive  sights  of  my  life.  Five 
gentlemen  entered  at  ten  o'clock,  as  they  might 
in  any  American  appellate  court,  took  their 
places  upon  the  bench,  and  without  any  more 
ado  counsel  rose  in  his  place  and  commenced 
his  argument.  The  counsel  was  Elihu  Root, 
Senator  from  the  State  of  New  York,  presenting 
the  case  of  the  United  States  of  North  America 
against  Great  Britain  in  regard  to  the  New- 
foundland fisheries;  a  case  which  had  brought 
the  two  countries  involved  to  the  verge  of  war 
a  dozen  times  in  the  century.  He  presented  it 
as  quietly,  in  as  lawyer-like  fashion,  as  if  he 
were  arguing  in  the  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals 
or  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  He  was  followed  after  a  time  by  op- 
posing counsel,  the  Attorney-General  of  Eng- 
land, who  rose  in  his  place  to  present  the  op- 
posing argument.  Days,  weeks,  went  by;  the 
exhibits  and  the  testimony  were  submitted, 
argument  was  heard,  the  court  rendered  its 
decision,  and  the  Newfoundland  Fisheries  case 
between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 
disappeared  from  the  history  of  trouble-making 
diplomacy,  after  having  occupied  a  prominent 


196  LOOKING  FORWARD 

place  in  it  for  a  century.  Again  the  United 
States  had  made  a  powerful  contribution  to 
the  better  organization  of  the  world. 

And  then  it  was  urged  that  The  Hague  Con- 
ference should  be  convened  again.  The  Reac- 
tionary party  in  Russia  were  in  power;  they 
kept  the  Tsar  from  calling  it.  The  President 
of  the  United  States,  at  that  time  Mr.  Roose- 
velt, gave  notice  that  if  the  Tsar  did  not  call 
it,  he  would.  The  Tsar  called  it !  The  Second 
Hague  Conference  assembled  in  1907;  and  there 
this  Court  of  Arbitration,  which  was  really  not 
a  court  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  but  a 
body  of  diplomatic  negotiators  not  bound  by 
law,  but  trying  to  arrive  at  an  agreement  by 
mutual  consent,  concession,  and  yielding,  gave 
way  to  the  idea  of  a  real  court,  an  International 
Court  of  Justice.  This  project  was  presented 
on  the  instructions  of  the  Secretary  of  State  of 
the  United  States,  Mr.  Root,  through  the 
American  delegation  headed  by  Mr.  Choate. 
When  Mr.  Choate  rose  to  present  that  argu- 
ment before  The  Hague  Conference,  he  opened 
by  saying:  "We  have  now  spent  weeks  in  regu- 
lating the  laws  of  war;  can  we  not  spend  a  few 
hours   in   trying  to   prevent  war.?"     And   he 


WOKING  FORWARD  197 

brought  forward  the  plan  which  after  weeks  of 
discussion  was  agreed  to  as  a  satisfactory  plan. 
The  Hague  Conference  then  adjourned  with- 
out a  constituted  court  only  because  the  small 
nations  and  the  great  could  not  agree  as  to 
how  the  judges  should  be  appointed  in  the 
first  instance.  That  was  the  condition  when 
the  present  war  broke  out. 

Remember  that  this  proposal  for  a  genuine 
International  Court  has  been  assented  to  by 
Great  Britain,  by  Germany,  by  France,  by 
Austria,  by  Italy,  by  Russia,  by  Japan,  and 
by  the  United  States;  and  there  it  stands. 
And  when  this  war  is  over,  that  is  the  point 
at  which  we  should  begin;  we  should  resume 
our  constructive  work  at  the  point  at  which 
this  war  broke  it  off.  We  can  say,  as  no  other 
people  in  the  world  can  say:  "We  can  give  you 
out  of  the  whole  of  our  experience  with  the 
one  hundred  and  twenty-odd  years  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  an  ex- 
ample of  just  how  this  institution  will  work, 
just  what  problems  will  arise,  just  how  it  has 
been  found  satisfactory  to  settle  them  between 
the  first  thirteen  and  now  forty-eight  sovereign 
States  of  the  American  Union." 


198  LOOKING  FORWARD 

I  will  not  go  into  detail.  The  international 
organization  of  the  world  is  a  most  fascinating 
subject.  Few  of  us  know  how  far  it  has  pro- 
ceeded. When  this  war  broke  out  there  were 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  international  or- 
ganizations that  had  their  seat  of  business  at 
Brussels,  dealing  with  every  sort  and  kind  of 
activity,  commercial,  industrial,  scientific,  liter- 
ary, governmental,  and  behind  them  all  lay 
this  great  conception  of  an  international  ju- 
dicial process. 

Now  what  is  required  for  the  carrying  out 
in  the  future  of  that  great  American  policy  ^. 
Two  things  are  required:  first,  the  supremacy 
in  the  world  of  the  rule  of  law,  and  the  sup- 
pression forever,  if  possible,  of  the  rule  of 
might.  There  is  needed  that  good-will  among 
men  which  is  the  only  final  sanction  of  public 
action.  Forms  of  organization  will  help,  but 
they  alone  will  not  suffice.  Legislation  may 
help,  but  it  will  not  accomphsh.  The  real 
problem  before  America  and  the  world,  the 
problem  that  stares  us  in  the  face  as  we  look 
forward  is,  how  to  secure  for  ourselves,  how 
to  spread  abroad  among  others,  that  belief  in 
law  and  order,  and  that  good-will  which  will 


WOKING  FORWARD  199 

put  blood  and  nerves  and  life,  body  and  brain, 
into  a  great  legal  organization  that  the  nations 
may  agree  to  work  under. 

That  is  your  problem  and  mine;  that  is  the 
problem  of  the  Frenchman,  of  the  Briton,  of 
the  Itahan,  of  the  German,  of  the  Russian,  of 
the  Bulgarian,  of  the  Japanese,  and  the  rest. 
Order,  peace,  prosperity,  cannot  be  imposed  on 
this  world  by  might.  A  temporary  victory  of 
that  kind  would  mean  a  new  outbreak  of  the 
irrepressible  spirit  of  liberty  as  soon  as  it  could 
catch  its  breath  after  its  defeat.  The  tempo- 
rary triumph  of  might  would  mean  indefinite 
wars  on  this  earth :  for  the  men  upon  it  are  fac- 
ing the  front;  they  are  looking  for  the  light; 
and  they  are  not  going  because  of  the  fine 
phrases  of  a  false  philosophy  to  put  upon  their 
minds  and  upon  their  bodies  the  shackles  that 
it  has  taken  hundreds  of  years  to  strike  from 
the  limbs  of  their  ancestors. 

So,  gentlemen,  many  as  are  the  outlooks  upon 
the  future,  that  is  the  one  which  looms  largest 
to  me,  that  is  the  one  which  it  seems  to  me 
has  the  most  significance  for  each  one  of  us. 
There  are  others  vitally  important.  You  must 
have  observed  with  what  speed  the  necessities 


200  LOOKING  FORWARD 

of  war  have  caused  the  complete  social,  indus- 
trial, and  financial  reconstruction  of  great  na- 
tions. The  Great  Britain  of  1914  does  not 
exist;  there  is  a  new  Great  Britain  of  1917. 
The  France  of  1914  does  not  exist;  there  is  a 
new  France  of  1917;  and  the  United  States  of 
1 9 14  does  not  exist,  and  never  will  exist  again ! 
There  is  a  new  United  States  beginning  to  be 
born.  A  whole  series  of  economic  problems 
that  have  been  intrusted  by  us  to  individual 
initiative  and  competition  are  in  these  Euro- 
pean countries  already,  and  in  our  own  country 
to-morrow,  to  be  cast  in  a  new  form  where  they 
are  to  be  approached  by  men  in  association 
with  each  other  and  with  government. 

That  change  has  in  it  an  element  of  strength 
and  an  element  of  danger;  but  whatever  ele- 
ments it  has,  here  it  is.  If  this  reorganization 
in  Great  Britain,  in  France,  and  in  America, 
proves  effective,  as  it  bids  fair  to,  in  ending 
this  war  successfully,  the  populations  of  these 
countries  will  never  wholly  desert  it  even  in 
times  of  peace.  Therefore,  we  must  be  pre- 
pared for  a  new  outlook  upon  our  industrial 
and  commercial  life.  We  must  expect  to  find 
that  we  are  called  on  for  a  far  larger  measure 


LOOKING  FORWARD  201 

of  co-operation  and  subjection  to  control  than 
ever  before.  If  that  can  be  accomplished  with- 
out destruction  of  individual  initiative,  without 
depriving  the  individual  of  the  just  rewards  of 
his  endeavor,  without  reducing  all  men  to  the 
common  level  of  mediocrity,  it  will  have  in  it 
elements  of  progress,  of  success,  and  of  happi- 
ness. If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  proves  simply 
to  be  a  new  chain  under  the  guise  of  an  invi- 
tation to  liberty,  we  shall  find  ways  and  means 
of  loosening  it;  because,  gentlemen,  the  one 
thing  that  will  not  be  kept  down,  the  one  thing 
that  no  power  can  forever  control,  is  the  desire 
of  the  human  heart  to  be  free;  free  to  think, 
free  to  express  itself  under  ordinary  and  just 
limitations  that  fix  the  equal  rights  of  others; 
free  to  labor;  free  to  maintain  itself  in  posses- 
sion of  its  just  gains.  Because  we  know  that 
if  we  surrender  that,  we  again  exalt  an  all- 
powerful  state  above  the  individual,  and  then 
it  is  not  long  before  we  shall  pay  tribute  to  it 
as  possessing  those  mysterious  powers  which 
are  but  the  symbol  of  might  and  tyranny. 

There  are  dangers  in  success;  there  are  dan- 
gers in  the  very  solutions  that  are  proposed  of 
the  problems  that  will  lead  to  success;  but  if 


202  LOOKING  FORWARD 

we  look  all  these  problems  in  the  face,  if  we 
understand  them,  if  we  keep  our  heads  clear, 
our  tempers  in  control,  we  may  be  able  to  sur- 
render what  is  needed,  to  do  our  just  part, 
without  impairing  those  fundamental  things  in 
which  we  all  so  profoundly  beheve  and  which 
are  at  stake  in  this  war. 

There  could  be  no  more  cynical  conclusion 
of  this  war  than  for  those  of  us  who  are  alHes 
to  defeat  the  German  arm)^  on  the  field  of  bat- 
tle, to  surrender  in  the  process  to  the  ideas 
that  have  taken  the  Germans  captive  and  sent 
them  into  this  contest.  It  is  as  necessary  for  us 
to  defeat  the  spirit  of  might  and  militarism  in 
our  own  hearts  and  in  our  own  land,  in  our  own 
economic  and  industrial  organization,  as  it  is 
to  prevent  it  from  conquering  on  the  field  of 
battle.  That  is  the  dilemma,  that  is  the  dijffi- 
culty,  which  confronts  us. 

So  here  we  stand,  looking  out  across  this 
troubled  and  dangerous  sea  to  those  who  are 
for  the  moment  protecting  us;  making  ready, 
let  us  hope  as  speedily  as  may  be,  and  in  all 
possible  ways,  to  give  them  support,  and  to 
join  them  as  we  should  with  our  flag,  our  ships, 
and  our  men. 


LOOKING  FORWARD  203 

We  are  looking  across  the  sea,  facing  not 
only  war  but  problems  of  life,  problems  of  con- 
duct, problems  of  political  and  economic  organ- 
ization. It  will  be  a  supreme  test  of  the  ca- 
pacity of  the  American  people  to  rule,  not 
others  but  themselves,  and  to  control,  not  de- 
pendents, but  their  own  interests;  to  keep  their 
place  without  losing  it,  and  to  take  their  just 
place  without  pushing  aside  any  other  human 
being  who  is  entitled  to  the  same  rights  that 
we  claim  for  ourselves. 


XIII 
THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 


An   Address   delivered   at   a   Meeting  of  the   National 

Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters  at  the  Hudson 

Theatre,  New  York,  April  23,  1917 


THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

I  could  wish  that  this  honorable  and  difficult 
task  had  fallen  into  other  hands  than  mine. 
The  story  which  Mr.  Kennan  has  just  recited 
out  of  the  wealth  of  his  experience,  his  observa- 
tion, and  his  participation  is  but  one  chapter 
in  the  long  record  of  political  and  civil  crime 
that  so  stirs  one's  blood  and  so  causes  one's 
gorge  to  rise  that  it  is  difficult  to  speak  in  this 
public  presence,  as  one  should  speak,  with  re- 
straint and  yet  with  appropriate  feeling  and 
appreciation.  For  myself,  the  events  of  these 
last  months  and  years  are  so  much  the  most 
important  happenings  in  two  thousand  years  of 
history  that  I  find  it  difficult  not  only  to  speak 
of  them,  but  to  think  of  them,  without  constant 
use  of  superlatives,  without  those  comparisons 
and  that  emphasis  which  often  destroy  by  their 
very  strength.  And  of  all  these  events,  of  all 
these  happenings,  what  more  stupendous  than 
the  spectacle  of  a  great  national  giant,  that 
stretches  its  huge  limbs  over  a  seventh  of  the 

earth's  surface  and  includes  in  its  population 

207 


2o8         THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

nearly  two  hundred  millions  of  human  beings, 
rising  to  the  full  stature  of  a  free  nation  in  the 
midst  of  a  world  at  war,  with  every  danger 
internal  and  external  threatening,  and  yet  with 
the  sacrifice  of  fewer  lives  than  Mr.  Kennan's 
censor  would  have  sent  to  the  gallows  or  to 
prison  in  a  single  month  ?  This  is  the  triumph 
of  an  idea  !  The  men  of  letters  and  the  artists 
gathered  here,  who  are  devoted  to  the  expres- 
sion in  their  several  media  of  an  idea  and  an 
ideal,  are  the  first  and  the  quickest  to  recog- 
nize the  significance  of  what  has  happened. 

What  has  happened  is  not  the  framing  of  a 
constitution;  none  has  yet  been  drawn.  What 
has  happened  is  not  the  success  of  an  armed 
revolution;  there  has  been  none.  What  has 
happened  is  not  what  happened  at  Whitehall 
in  January,  1649,  or  what  happened  in  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  in  January,  1793;  for  that 
has  not  happened.  What  has  happened  is 
that  an  idea,  slowly  germinating  in  the  mind 
of  a  great  people  who  have  been  set  off  by  lan- 
guage, by  religion,  by  custom,  by  barriers  of 
geography  from  a  great  portion  of  the  western 
world,  has  given  birth  to  a  new  political  era 
for  that  people  and  has  moved  the  boundary 


TEE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  209 

between  East  and  West  from  the  Vistula  nearly 
to  the  Yellow  Sea^ 

The  great  Slavic  nation  has  thrown  in  its 
lot  with  the  West.  It  has  given  expression  to 
the  idea  which  makes  the  West,  the  idea  which 
one  day  will  make  the  newest  West  out  of  the 
whole  of  the  immemorial  East.  That  idea  is 
the  product  of  philosophy  and  of  letters.  That 
idea  has  called  into  being  the  great  master- 
pieces of  the  poet,  of  the  writer  of  imaginative 
prose,  of  the  historian,  of  the  seer,  of  him  who 
works  in  plastic  materials,  bending  them  to 
spiritual  and  intellectual  forms.  That  idea  is 
the  idea  of  human  Hberty.  There  have  been 
attempts — how  numerous  it  would  be  common- 
place to  mention — ^to  hold  it  in  check,  to  keep 
it  back;  but  like  a  great,  all-powerful,  slow- 
moving,  fateful  glacier  it  has  come  down  from 
its  fastnesses  in  the  human  heart  and  the 
human  soul,  watered  by  the  perpetual  snows 
of  human  aspiration,  until  it  is  conquering,  not 
for  destruction  but  for  fruitfulness,  all  the 
green  valleys  which  lay  spread  out  before  its 
path. 

Perhaps  the  most  potent  force  in  this  world 
to-day  is  the  force  of  a  man  of  letters  who  has 


2IO  THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

been  dead  for  one  hundred  and  forty  years,  a 
man  whose  philosophy  was  absurd,  whose 
knowledge  of  history  was  negligible,  whose 
character  was  grotesque,  whose  contradictions 
were  almost  as  numerous  as  his  utterances. 
But  the  reason  why  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  put 
force  and  life  into  the  American,  the  French, 
and  the  Russian  revolutions  was  that  with  all 
his  limitations,  with  all  his  oddities,  he  preached 
the  gospel  of  human  liberty  in  ways  that  ordi- 
nary men  and  women  could  read  and  under- 
stand. If  we  look  back  across  the  troubled  gen- 
erations that  lie  between  him  and  us,  we  must 
forgive  him  for  his  faults,  for  his  absurdities, 
for  his  crudities,  and  take  note  only  of  the  fact 
that  the  idea  which  he  was  moved  to  put  into 
so  many  different  literary  forms  had  about  it 
such  power,  such  charm,  such  immortality,  that 
it  is  carrying  his  name  at  this  moment  around 
the  earth  as  one  of  the  effective  makers  and 
shapers  of  this  spiritual  rebirth  of  the  Slavic 
people.  Rousseau  was  a  man  of  letters;  and 
we  celebrate  this  far-off  genius  in  this  last  act, 
this  latest  expression,  of  the  current  of  thought 
which  he  did  so  much  to  direct.  For  he  had 
not  originality  enough  to  invent  or  to  discover 


THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  211 

it;  he  had  simply  the  power  to  make  it  take 
hold  of  men  and  women  of  different  speech,  of 
different  lands,  of  different  race,  of  different 
traditions. 

The  centre  of  gravity  of  the  world's  interest 
has  shifted,  and  we  now  see  as  we  could  not 
see  a  year  ago  the  real  meaning  of  the  great 
miUtary  struggle  that  is  engaging  the  manhood 
and  the  wealth  of  the  world.  As  a  struggle 
between  autocracy  and  liberty  it  was  anoma- 
lous so  long  as  the  Tsar  and  Autocrat  of  all 
the  Russias  was  found  in  the  ranks  of  liberty; 
but  now  that  his  people  have  thrown  off  the 
domino  which  they  have  worn  for  three  hun- 
dred years,  they  stand  out  in  their  true  uni- 
form as  another  struggling  democratic  people, 
marching  upward  toward  the  light. 

Those  of  us  who  remember  our  history  must 
be  careful  not  to  let  our  enthusiasm  outrun 
our  judgment.  A  great  thing  is  happening; 
but  it  has  only  just  begun  to  happen  and  there 
are  many  obstacles,  many  difficulties,  many 
possibilities  of  error  and  delay  in  the  path. 
See  how  long  it  has  taken  the  English-speaking 
peoples  to  build  their  institutions,  and  how 
anxious  they  still  are  to  improve  them.     See 


212  THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

how  long  it  took  France,  even  after  her  revolu- 
tion had  begun,  to  estabhsh  on  firm  founda- 
tion and  with  common  consent  a  Third  Repub- 
lic that  was  safe  from  internal  corruption  and 
damage.  We  must  not  expect  Russia  to  do 
at  once  what  it  has  taken  England,  America, 
and  France  generations  and  even  centuries  to 
accomplish.  The  very  autocracy  under  which 
Russians  have  lived  has  deprived  them  of 
much  of  the  stimulus  and  the  material  for  swift 
institution-building.  Yet  they  have  come  late, 
and  they  so  have  the  advantage  of  the  expe- 
rience, of  the  errors  as  well  as  of  the  successes, 
of  those  of  us  who  have  gone  before. 

One  lesson -the  Russians  will  learn  if  they 
look  us  straight  in  the  face,  if  they  look  Eng- 
land, and  France,  and  America  straight  in  the 
face;  and  that  is  that  liberty  does  not  mean 
license,  but  discipline.  Liberty  means  self- 
discipline;  it  means  reaching  out  with  the  hand 
of  history  and  the  hand  of  philosophy  and  the 
hand  of  observation  and  taking  into  oneself 
and  making  one's  own  those  principles  of  con- 
duct, personal  and  political,  those  forms  of 
organization,  civic  and  social,  which  history 
justifies  and  which  the  conscience  of  mankind 


THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  213 

approves.  That  is  self-discipline,  the  self-dis- 
cipline of  an  individual  and  the  self-discipHne 
of  a  nation.  No  nation,  old  or  young,  Latin  or 
Slav,  Anglo-Saxon  or  Teuton,  will  ever  be  free 
until  it  disciplines  itself.  To  insist  upon  that 
fact,  is  perhaps  the  greatest  service  we  can 
render  our  newly  emancipated  friends  across  the 
sea  and  across  the  warring  lands  that  lie  be- 
tween. When  we  welcome  them  to  the  sister- 
hood of  free  self-governing  nations,  let  us  not 
welcome  them  without  some  fair  warning  as 
to  our  difficulties  and  problems,  without  some 
suggestion  as  to  the  obstacles  that  lie  in  their 
path,  that  they  may  not  make  the  mistake  that 
some  have  made  who  have  gone  before  in 
thinking  that  a  revolution  is  effected  by  a 
single  turn  of  the  human  wheel.  The  mere 
abdication  of  a  Tsar  does  not  constitute  a  de- 
mocracy. 

When  the  present  revolutionary  movement 
took  its  rise  with  the  general  strike  and  the 
massacres  of  twelve  or  thirteen  years  ago,  an 
American  observer  journeyed  to  Russia  to  take 
note  of  the  happenings.  In  a  conversation  with 
Tolstoy  he  said  that  he  had  come  to  remain  a 
year  or  two  to  study  the  Russian  revolution. 


214  THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

Tolstoy  said:  ''Come  prepared  to  stay  for  fifty 
years."  Tolstoy  was  right.  We  are  only  at 
the  beginning  of  a  great  public  movement  which 
follows  upon  a  hundred  years  or  more  of  a 
preparation  which  we  in  the  western  world 
have  not  fully  understood.  The  village  com- 
munity life  of  the  Russian  people  has  long  given 
training,  excellent,  admirable  training,  in  the 
affairs  of  government  and  domestic  economy 
to  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  peasants 
with  whom  reading  and  writing  are  arts  yet 
to  be  acquired.  The  Zemstvos,  called  into  ex- 
istence fifty  years  ago,  have  grown  in  experi- 
ence and  authority  until  as  provincial  assem- 
blies they  have  taken  on  some  of  the  attributes 
of  an  American  State  legislature.  During  the 
past  two  and  a  half  years  they  have  been  the 
most  effective  single  instrument  in  equipping 
the  Russian  people  to  carry  on  the  war,  not 
only  in  a  military  but  in  an  economic  sense. 
There  again,  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  peasants  have  been  trained  in  habits  of  co- 
operation, in  methods  of  government,  in  meth- 
ods of  accomplishing  public  ends  through  pub- 
lic acts,  all  of  which  are  strangely  difl^erent 
from  passing  resolutions  and  issuing  manifes- 


THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  215 

toes.  And  so  when  the  time  came  and  the 
domino  could  be  thrown  aside,  it  was  not  to 
a  wholly  untrained  and  unfamiliar  people  that 
this  opportunity  for  self-government  came.  It 
was  rather  to  a  people  already  partially  tutored 
in  government  and  to  one  whose  members  had 
long,  long  been  thinking  hard  about  govern- 
ment. If  that  under  which  they  lived  was 
government,  what  could  governments  be  for  ? 
Can  you  wholly  fail  to  understand  the  men 
who  could  only  answer  Mr.  Kennan's  category 
of  crime  by  violence .?  Among  one  hundred 
and  seventy  millions  of  people  is  it  strange 
that  there  were  some  who  could  not  wait  ^  Is 
it  strange  that  there  were  some  who  could  not 
control  their  passions  and  who,  stirred  to  the 
deepest  resentment  by  what  they  saw  and  felt 
and  suffered,  gave  way,  human-like,  to  those 
passions  which  could  only  aggravate  although 
intended  to  cure  ^.  It  is  not  strange.  There  is 
a  point  beyond  which  human  nature  cannot 
resist  temptation,  and  that  point  was  reached, 
long  ago  reached,  under  the  autocracy  of 
Russia. 

Now,  I  repeat,  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the 
world's  interest  has  changed.     We  follow  with 


2i6  THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

the  greatest  anxiety  the  daily,  almost  the 
hourly,  movement  of  those  magnificent  armies 
that  are  standing  between  the  American  people 
and  their  foes  on  the  western  front  in  Europe. 
But  the  future  of  the  new  Europe,  perhaps  the 
future  of  humanity,  is  being  worked  out  to-day 
while  we  sit  here,  on  the  unfamihar  banks  of 
the  Neva,  the  Volga,  and  the  Vistula.  If  Rus- 
sia holds  firm,  if  her  new-found  political  con- 
sciousness and  her  new-found  political  power 
stand  the  storms  from  within  and  without  to 
which  they  certainly  are  exposed,  the  success- 
ful end  of  this  war  for  liberty  is  in  measurable 
sight.  But  if  Russia  gives  way  and  if  the 
whole  of  the  eastern  continent  is  open  to  those 
who  hold  other  views  and  have  other  aims 
than  ours,  this  war  may  last  till  every  head  in 
this  hall  is  gray.  On  Russia,  on  free  Russia, 
on  democratic  Russia,  now  depends  the  early 
and  the  successful  issue  of  the  war. 

Must  we  not  then,  men  of  letters,  artists, 
citizens,  hasten  to  the  highest  mountain-top 
and  call  out  our  greeting  across  land  and  sea 
to  those  who  would  stand  with  us  for  this 
common  cause  ?  Should  we  not  hasten  to  call 
out  to  them  a  word  of  encouragement  and  help 


THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  217 

and  warning,  and  to  say:  "We  understand  what 
you  have  gone  through;  we  know  what  the 
past  has  been.  Stand  firm,  and  help  us  to 
make  a  new  future  that  will  be  a  new  future 
for  the  United  States  as  well  as  a  new  future 
for  Russia"  ? 

Years  ago,  in  a  striking  statement,  Count 
Muravieff  said  Russia  was  coming  to  bear  upon 
her  shoulders  the  new  age.  "We  are  coming," 
this  is  his  phrase,  "to  relieve  the  tired  men." 
The  Latins  have  had  their  great  era;  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  have  had  their  great  era;  the  Teutons 
have  had  their  great  era;  and  now  the  Slav 
emerges  into  the  full  view  of  modern  history 
and  into  participation  with  it  to  relieve  the 
tired  men.  The  Slav  is  going  to  come  with  all 
his  unknown  potentiality,  with  all  his  amazing 
differences  from  what  have  hitherto  been  the 
western  peoples.  The  Slav  is  going  to  come, 
bound  to  the  west  by  this  new  social  and  po- 
litical ideal  and  by  this  possession  of  new  social 
and  political  power. 

Long  ago,  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago, 
Gogol  looking  out  on  his  land  cried:  "Whither 
art  thou  speeding,  my  Russia?"  Now  we 
think  we   have   an    answer  to   the   question. 


2i8         THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

Whither  art  thou  speeding,  Russia  ?  Speeding 
toward  the  high  places  that  are  in  possession  of 
those  human  spirits  who  love  hberty,  who  love 
justice,  who  preach  and  who  practise  righteous- 
ness, and  who,  with  all  their  faults  and  stum- 
blings and  imperfections,  will  labor  for  the 
coming  of  that  happy  day  when  this  earth  shall 
be  a  better  place  to  live  in  because  men  are  all 
free  and  just  together.  That  is  where  we  must 
hope  that  Gogol's  Russia  is  speeding. 


XIV 
THE  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


An  Address  delivered  at  the  Service  of  Farewell  to 
Columbia  Students  Leaving  for  the  War, 
St.  Paul's  Chapel,  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, May,  6,  191 7 


THE  CALL  TO  SERVICE 

In  all  the  long  and  honorable  history  of  our 
University,  there  has  been  no  hour  just  like 
this.  The  world  is  at  war,  and  this  University, 
in  common  with  the  nation  that  it  loves  and 
serves,  is  about  to  send  of  its  bravest  and  its 
best  to  take  a  share  in  a  struggle  on  whose  re- 
sult the  history  of  mankind  for  centuries  will 
hang. 

On  the  eve  of  that  going  out,  we  gather  to 
participate  in  this  stately  and  solemn  service 
to  Almighty  God,  in  Whose  name  this  Univer- 
sity was  founded  and  in  Whose  name  it  has 
labored  from  generation  to  generation. 

This  hour,  these  happenings,  this  service, 
bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  everlasting 
values  of  life,  and  with  a  contemplation  of 
those  standards  by  which  men  measure  con- 
duct and  civilization  and  by  which  history 
awards  them  praise  or  blame.  While  we  are 
here  in  quiet  contemplation  and  prayer,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  at  this  very  mo- 
ment, more  than  twenty  million  men  in  arms 

221 


222  THE  CALL  TO  SERVICE 

are  struggling  to  determine  whecher  our  nation 
and  our  University  shall  live. 

On  the  northern  and  eastern  slopes  of  Vimy 
ridge,  on  the  uplands  of  Craonne  looking  upon 
the  historic  fortress  of  Laon  over  territory 
which  has  been  the  scene  of  historic  contest 
since  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar,  your  fate  and 
mine  is  being  determined  by  men  whom  we 
have  never  seen  and  whose  very  names  we  do 
not  know.  And  then,  away  over  yonder  be- 
yond the  Vistula  and  the  Masurian  Lakes,  on 
down  across  the  Balkan  peninsula  to  the  very 
gates  of  the  garden  of  Eden  itself,  participants 
in  this  struggle  are  face  to  face  in  arms. 

The  call  for  Hberty,  for  righteousness,  for 
justice  between  men  and  nations,  has  filled  the 
ears  and  stirred  the  hearts  of  our  nation,  and 
this  University  has  responded  in  the  only  way 
that  a  university  of  its  traditions  and  ruling 
principles  could  respond.  Without  boastful- 
ness,  without  vaunting,  but  with  quiet  and 
serene  courage  and  determination,  our  every 
member  will  take  his  place  as  soldier  or  civilian 
in  that  great  army  of  the  people  which  is  en- 
Hsted  to  bring  this  war  to  a  speedy  and  final 
conclusion  on  such  a  basis  that  just  peace  may 


TEE  CALL  TO  SERVICE  223 

reign  in  this  world,  and,  in  the  fine  phrase  of 
the  President,  "the  world  may  be  made  safe 
for  democracy." 

Columbia  gives  all  it  has,  and  it  is  with  in- 
finite pride  and  brotherly  satisfaction  that  we 
look  into  the  faces  of  this  youth  which  has 
elected  to  enroll  in  the  military  service  of  the 
United  States  and  to  place  its  intelligence,  its 
character,  its  training,  at  the  service,  not  alone 
of  its  country,  but  of  the  great  fundamental 
principles  on  which  civilization  rests. 

One  of  the  oldest  and  subtlest  philosophies 
in  the  world  teaches  that  the  whole  of  history 
consists  in  the  struggle  between  the  principle 
of  good  and  the  principle  of  evil.  It  teaches 
that  now  one,  now  the  other,  is  uppermost, 
but  that  as  the  good  principle  overcomes  the 
evil,  or  as  the  evil  principle  overcomes  the  good, 
so  mankind  marches  forward  to  freedom  or  so 
it  falls  back  into  serfdom  and  slavery. 

This  great  struggle  between  the  good  and 
the  evil  principle  has  taken,  in  this  twentieth 
century,  the  form  of  a  contest  between  two 
political  and  social  principles  which  cannot 
live  together  in  this  world.  And  that  is  why 
this  contest  must  be  settled  by  force  of  arms. 


224  THE  CALL  TO  SERVICE 

If  those  two  principles  had  anything  in  com- 
mon, an  adjustment  between  them  might  pos- 
sibly be  reached;  but  each  principle  absolutely 
excludes  the  other.  As  Abraham  Lincoln  said 
a  generation  ago,  "This  nation  cannot  exist 
half  slave  and  half  free,"  so  it  may  be  said 
to-day,  "This  world  cannot  exist  half  despot- 
ism and  half  democracy." 

Democracy  must  in  its  way  dispose  of  des- 
potism or  despotism  will  in  its  way  overcome 
democracy.  Therefore,  it  is  to  no  ordinary 
contest  that  this  nation  goes  forward.  It  is  to 
no  struggle  as  to  which  one  may  be  for  a  mo- 
ment indifferent.  It  is  to  the  deepest  and  most 
tremendous  conflict  that  all  history  records, 
and  Columbia  answers,  Adsum !  Colurnbia 
stretches  forth  her  hand  in  preparation  to  aid 
those  of  her  sons  who  are  rushing  forward  to 
posts  of  honor  and  service  and  danger,  and 
then  extends  her  hand  in  blessing  and  benedic- 
tion upon  them  and  their  ideals  and  their 
efforts. 

Wherever  the  cause  of  liberty  Is  in  danger, 
there  Columbia's  hand  will  be  found  to  help 
avert  it.  Wherever  the  rule  of  despotism  is 
extending,  there  Columbia's  hand  will  be  found 


THE  CALL  TO  SERVICE  225 

to  remove  it.  Wherever  there  is  need  of  sci- 
entific skill  and  genius  to  serve,  to  cure,  to  in- 
vent, to  construct,  there  a  Columbia  hand  will 
be  found  ready  to  do  its  duty  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  public  good  and  for  the  glory  of 
Almighty  God. 


XV 
THE  ENVOYS  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY 


An  Address  delivered  at  a  Special  Convocation  of 
Columbia  University,  May  lo,  1917 


THE  ENVOYS  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY 

Since  in  1861  Columbia  University  gave  its 
highest  honors  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  it  has 
known  no  such  day  as  this.  In  the  modern 
democracies,  the  university — and  the  univer- 
sity almost  alone — is  able  to  rise  above  strife  of 
party  or  of  faction,  above  difference  of  rehgious 
creed,  above  official  forms  and  material  stand- 
ards, to  speak  for  the  spirit  and  the  mind  of 
the  whole  people.  This  University  is  especially 
competent  so  to  speak  because  of  its  long  and 
noble  tradition,  because  of  its  unbroken  record 
of  distinguished  public  service,  and  because  of 
the  great  army  of  men  who  from  decade  to 
decade,  and  now  even  from  century  to  cen- 
tury, have  gone  out  through  its  gates  to  serve 
the  State  and  to  play  a  man's  part  in  the  world. 

To-day  this  University  speaks  with  no  un- 
certain voice  to  offer  a  welcome,  finely  sym- 
bolized by  the  outstretched  arms  of  Alma 
Mater,  to  those  great  men  who,  as  captains  of 
the  public   policies   of  democratic   peoples,   as 

captains  of  armies  and  of  navies,  and  as  cap- 

229 


230       ENVOYS  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY 

tains  of  commerce  and  of  finance,  have  repre- 
sented with  consummate  skill  and  supreme 
devotion  the  aspirations  and  the  purposes  of 
the  French  Republic  and  of  the  British  Em- 
pire. It  is  in  but  a  superficial  sense  that 
France,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States 
are  alHes  in  the  conduct  of  war;  in  a  far  deeper 
sense  they  are  companions  in  the  great  enter- 
prise of  democracy,  in  the  spreading  of  higher 
hope  and  broader  opportunity  among  men,  and 
in  the  upbuilding  of  a  yet  finer  and  fairer  and 
more  secure  structure  of  civil  and  political  lib- 
erty upon  the  foundations  that  the  fathers  have 
laid.  The  intellect  and  the  conscience  of  Amer- 
ica, speaking  so  far  as  they  may  by  this  Uni- 
versity— the  University  of  Alexander  Hamil- 
ton, friend  and  companion-in-arms  of  La  Fay- 
ette— cry  Hail  to  these  representatives  of  our 
brothers,  and  bid  them  know  how  complete  and 
how  whole-hearted  are  our  country's  under- 
standing of  their  aims  and  our  country's  appre- 
ciation of  their  accomplishments  and  their 
sacrifices.  Behind  the  powerful  defense  of 
their  armies  and  their  navies  we  have  for  two 
and  a  half  years  rested  secure  and  undisturbed. 
The  time  has  fortunately  come  when  the  Ameri- 


ENVOYS  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY       231 

can  people  have  declared  their  purpose  to  add 
might  to  their  sympathy  and  to  put  determina- 
tion behind  their  good  will.  To  this  epochal 
fact  full  testimony  is  borne  by  the  city  of  New 
York,  the  great  power-house  of  the  nation's 
energies,  in  which  is  centred  so  much  of  Ameri- 
can activity  and  from  which  radiate  so  many 
of  the  directing  forces  in  American  life. 

There  can  be  but  one  certain  end  to  this 
war,  and  there  can  be  but  one  road  to  durable 
peace.  Were  it  possible  to  contemplate  the 
present  victory  of  those  forces  that  would  halt 
and  imperil  democracy,  there  would  lie  before 
us,  before  our  children,  and  before  our  chil- 
dren's children,  an  unbroken  series  of  wars, 
until  those  who  come  after  us  had  gained  what 
we  in  our  day  had  failed  to  accomplish.  The 
upward  progress  of  mankind  may  be  delayed 
or  checked,  but  it  cannot  forever  be  prevented. 
In  the  whole  course  of  history,  no  great  crisis 
which  involved  the  forward  march  of  man  has 
been  resolved  to  his  disadvantage.  Democracy 
will  win  this  war  because  the  works  of  men  will 
not  fall  below  the  full  measure  of  their  faith. 

To  you,  M.   Viviani,   representative  of  the 
government  and  the  mind  of  France;  to  you. 


232       ENVOYS  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY 

Marshal  JofFre,  whose  name  and  fame  already 
belong  to  the  ages;  to  you,  Lord  CunlifFe,  as  a 
tower  of  national  strength;  and  to  you,  Mr. 
Consul-General,  representing  the  Right  Hon- 
orable Arthur  James  Balfour,  consummate 
flower  of  British  cultivation  and  British  states- 
manship— I  bid  sincere  and  affectionate  wel- 
come to  this  University,  which,  as  yonder 
legend  reads,  was  "founded  in  the  Province  of 
New  York  by  Royal  Charter  in  the  Reign  of 
George  II,  perpetuated  as  Columbia  College  by 
the  people  of  the  State  of  New  York  when  they 
became  free  and  independent,  maintained  and 
cherished  from  generation  to  generation  for  the 
advancement  of  the  public  good  and  the  glory 
of  Almighty  God." 


XVI 

THE  INTERNATIONAL  MIND:  HOW  TO 
DEVELOP  IT 


Introductory  Address   delivered    at   the  National   Con- 
ference on  Foreign  Relations  of  the  United  States, 
held  under  the  auspices  of  the  Academy  of 
Political  Science,  Long  Beach,  New 
York,  May  28,  191 7 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  MIND:  HOW  TO 
DEVELOP  IT 

For  two  generations  it  has  been  a  common 
complaint  that  the  people  of  the  United  States 
took  no  adequate  interest  in  foreign  policy,  and 
were  without  any  but  cursory  knowledge  of 
international  politics.  This  judgment  has  been 
expressed,  often  publicly,  by  successive  secre- 
taries of  state,  by  those  who  have  held  impor- 
tant diplomatic  posts,  and  by  those  who,  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  have  seen 
long  service  upon  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations.  A  sort  of  national  self-centredness 
together  with  a  feeling  of  geographic  and  po- 
litical isolation  have  combined  to  bring  about 
this  unfortunate  state  of  affairs.  It  has  been 
unfortunate  for  two  reasons:  first,  because  it 
marked  a  serious  break  with  our  earlier  national 
tradition;  and  second,  because  it  has  held  back 
the  people  and  the  government  of  the  United 
States  from  making  the  full  measure  of  con- 
tribution of  which  they  were  capable,  to  the 
better  and  closer  international  organization  of 

the  world. 

235 


236        THE  INTERNATIONAL  MIND: 

One  need  have  but  slight  acquaintance  with 
the  writings  and  speeches  of  the  fathers  and 
with  the  records  of  the  early  Congresses  to 
know  that,  when  the  government  of  the  United 
States  was  young,  it  was  the  eager  ambition  of 
those  who  most  fully  represented  it  to  play  a 
large  part  in  the  international  life  of  the  world, 
primarily  with  the  view  of  advancing  those 
ideas  and  those  principles  in  which  the  people 
of  the  new  American  republic  believed  and  to 
which  they  were  committed.  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin was  our  first  great  internationalist.  Alex- 
ander Hamilton,  of  whom  Talleyrand  said  that 
he  had  divined  Europe;  Thomas  Jefferson, 
whose  public  service  in  Europe  was  quite  ex- 
ceptional; as  well  as  Chancellor  Livingston, 
John  Jay,  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  and  Henry  Clay  not  only  knew 
western  Europe,  but  were  known  by  it.  It! 
making  endeavor,  therefore,  to  increase  the 
interest  of  the  American  people  in  foreign  rela- 
tionships and  in  international  policy  we  are 
but  asking  them  to  return  to  one  of  the  finest 
and  soundest  of  national  traditions. 

Our  national  self-absorption  has  held  us 
back,  too,  from  playing  an  adequate  part  in 


HOW  TO  DEVELOP  IT  237 

the  development  of  that  international  organi- 
zation which  has  long  been  under  way  and 
which  the  results  of  the  present  war  will  hasten 
and  greatly  advance.  Despite  these  facts,  and 
chiefly  because  of  the  high  character  and  ability 
of  those  who  represented  the  United  States  at 
the  two  Hague  Conferences  of  1899  and  1907, 
the  American  contributions  to  the  deliberations 
and  recommendations  of  those  notable  assem- 
blies were  most  important.  Indeed,  when  the 
record  of  history  comes  to  be  made  up,  it  may 
be  that  those  contributions  will  be  judged  to 
mark  the  beginning  of  a  new  epoch  in  the 
world's  history. 

The  Conference  which  now  assembles  to  con- 
sider and  discuss  the  international  relations 
and  the  international  policies  of  the  United 
States,  is  a  beginning  and  only  a  beginning 
of  a  campaign  of  education  and  enlightenment 
which  is  to  continue  until  there  has  been  devel- 
oped among  all  parts  and  sections  of  our  land 
what  I  ventured  some  years  ago  to  describe  as 
the  "international  mind."^  The  international 
mind  is  nothing  else  than  that  habit  of  think- 

^Cf.  "The  International  Mind."  (New  York:  Charles  Scrib- 
ner's  Sons,  19 13.) 


238        TEE  INTERNATIONAL  MIND: 

ing  of  foreign  relations  and  business  and  that 
habit  of  dealing  with  them  which  regard  the 
several  nations  of  the  civilized  world  as  free 
and  co-operating  equals  in  aiding  the  progress 
of  civilization,  in  developing  commerce  and  in- 
dustry, and  in  spreading  enlightenment  and 
culture  throughout  the  world.  It  would  be  as 
inconsistent  with  the  international  mind  to  at- 
tempt to  steal  some  other  nation's  territory  or 
to  do  that  nation  an  unprovoked  injury  or 
damage,  as  it  would  be  inconsistent  with  the 
principles  of  ordinary  morality  to  attempt  to 
steal  some  other  individual's  purse  or  to  com- 
mit an  unprovoked  assault  upon  him.  The 
international  mind  requires  that  a  nation  and 
its  government  shall  freely  and  gladly  grant  to 
every  other  nation  and  to  every  other  govern- 
ment the  rights  and  the  privileges  which  it 
claims  for  itself.  From  this  it  follows  that  the 
international  mind  is  not  consonant  with  any 
theory  of  the  State  which  regards  the  State  as 
superior  to  the  rules  and  restrictions  of  moral 
conduct  or  which  admits  the  view  that  to  some 
one  State  is  committed  the  hegemony  of  the 
world's  affairs  for  the  world's  good.  When  that 
doctrine  prevails  and  takes  hold  of  the  convic- 


now  TO  DEVELOP  IT  239 

tion  and  the  Imagination  of  a  great  people,  an 
issue  is  presented  that  cannot  be  settled  by 
vote  in  conference,  that  cannot  be  arbitrated 
by  the  wisest  statesmen,  and  that  cannot  be 
determined  by  the  findings  of  any  court.  The 
authority  and  the  value  of  each  of  these  modes 
of  procedure  is  challenged  by  the  very  issue 
itself.  Therefore  resort  must  be  had  to  armed 
force  in  order  to  determine  whether  the  inter- 
national mind,  shared  by  a  score  or  more  of 
independent  and  self-respecting  nations,  shall 
prevail,  or  whether  the  arms  of  a  non-moral, 
all-powerful,  military  imperialism  shall  be 
stretched  out  over  the  whole  round  world  for 
its  government  and  its  protection.  It  is  to 
determine  this  issue  that  the  world  is  now  at 
war. 

Should  the  cause  of  imperialism,  by  any 
chance,  win  this  war,  the  people  of  the  United 
States  would  find  it  quite  unnecessary  for  some 
time  to  come  to  concern  themselves  with  for- 
eign relations  and  with  foreign  policy.  Those 
matters  would  be  taken  care  of  for  them  by  a 
power  that  had  shown  itself  strong  enough  to 
overcome  and  to  suppress  the  internationally 
minded  men  and  nations.     On  the  other  hand, 


240        THE  INTERNATIONAL  MIND: 

if,  as  we  confidently  hope  and  believe,  the  issue 
of  this  war  is  to  be  favorable  to  the  free,  self- 
governing  democracies  of  the  world,  then  the 
people  of  the  United  States  must  address  them- 
selves with  redoubled  energy  and  with  closest 
attention  to  those  matters  of  legislation,  of 
administration,  and  of  general  public  policy 
which  constitute  and  determine  national  con- 
duct. The  first  task  of  this  Conference  and  of 
every  similar  conference  that  may  be  held  here- 
after is  to  drive  this  lesson  home. 

When  this  task  is  undertaken  it  will  speedily 
appear  that  our  government  is  not  well  or- 
ganized at  the  moment  for  the  formulation  and 
prosecution  of  effective  international  policies. 
The  division  of  authority  between  the  national 
government  and  governments  of  the  several 
States  raises  one  kind  of  problem.  Action  un- 
der the  treaty-making  power  of  the  national 
government  raises  another  set  of  problems,  par- 
ticularly since  there  is  not  yet  a  substantial 
unanimity  of  opinion  as  to  the  scope  and  au- 
thority of  the  treaty-making  power  itself,  or 
as  to  the  proper  and  effective  means  which 
should  be  at  the  command  of  the  government 
of  the  United  States  for  enforcing  among  its 


BOW  TO  DEVELOP  IT  241 

own  people  adherence  to  a  treaty  obligation 
into  which,  through  their  government,  they 
have  solemnly  entered.  The  difficulties  with 
which  we  shall  have  to  contend  are,  therefore, 
not  alone  difficulties  arising  from  present  lack 
of  popular  information  and  present  lack  of 
popular  interest  in  international  policies,  but 
they  are  also  those  which  arise  from  the  struc- 
ture and  the  operation  of  our  own  form  of 
constitutional  government. 

That  the  old  secrecy  of  diplomatic  action  has 
gone  forever  is  a  happy  circumstance.  This 
secrecy  was  well  suited  to  the  making  of  con- 
ventions between  ruling  monarchs  or  reigning 
dynasties,  or  between  governments  which  rep- 
resented only  very  select  and  highly  privileged 
classes.  It  has  no  place,  however,  in  diplomatic 
intercourse  between  democratic  peoples.  The 
people  themselves  must  understand  and  assent 
to  international  policies  and  contracts  that  are 
entered  upon  and  executed  in  their  name. 
Otherwise  there  can  be  no  assurance  that  these 
policies  will  be  executed  and  these  contracts 
observed;  for  without  foreknowledge  on  the 
part  of  the  people  of  that  to  which  they  are 
committed  there  can  be  no  successful  moral 


242        THE  INTERNATIONAL  MIND 

appeal  made  to  them  to  keep  their  word  and 
their  bond  at  a  later  time  when  an  opposition 
may  arise  between  principle  and  immediate 
self-interest. 

We  are  assembled,  then,  to  help  begin  a 
movement  which  must  not  cease  until  the  en- 
tire American  people  are  interested  in  their 
international  relationships,  their  international 
position,  and  their  international  influence. 
When  that  shall  have  been  even  measurably 
accomplished,  the  people  themselves  will  be 
quick  to  bring  about  such  changes  in  the  form 
of  their  governmental  structure  and  in  their 
administrative  procedure  as  will  enable  them 
honorably  and  finely  to  maintain  their  place, 
not  as  a  nation  that  lives  to  itself  alone,  but  as 
a  nation  that  shares  with  every  other  like- 
minded  nation  the  desire  and  the  purpose  to 
improve  the  lot  of  mankind  everywhere,  and 
to  carry  into  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth 
those  hopes,  those  principles,  and  those  forms 
of  governmental  action  that  are  best  adapted 
to  giving  man  the  fullest  opportunity  to  make 
himself  free,  and  to  be  worthy  of  freedom. 


XVII 
A  WORLD  IN  FERMENT 


An   Address    delivered   at  the   163d  Commencement  of 
Columbia  University,  June  6,  1917 


A  WORLD  IN  FERMENT 

The  hundreds,  indeed  the  thousands,  of 
American  youth  who  pass  out  from  this  Uni- 
versity to-day  go  into  a  new  and  a  strange 
world.  It  is  more  than  a  world  at  war;  it  is  a 
world  in  ferment.  From  the  steppes  of  Russia 
all  the  way  across  Europe  and  America  and 
around  to  Japan  and  China,  men  and  nations 
are  not  only  engaged  in  a  titanic  military  strug- 
gle but  they  are  also  examining  and,  when 
necessary,  quickly  readjusting  and  reorganiz- 
ing their  customary  habits  of  thought  and  of 
action,  private  as  well  as  public.  It  is  not 
easy,  perhaps  it  is  impossible,  to  find  an  Ari- 
adne who  will  give  us  a  guiding  thread  through 
this  labyrinth  of  change.  Presuppositions  that 
have  long  sustained  the  solid  fabric  of  personal 
and  of  national  conduct  have  been  destroyed. 
Assumptions  that  have  seemed  to  be  made 
certain  by  the  earlier  progress  of  man  have 
disappeared  under  the  pressure  of  the  latest 
manifestations  of  trained  human  capacity  for 
evil. 

245 


246  A   WORLD  IN  FERMENT 

Before  such  a  scene  the  timid  will  despair, 
while  the  reckless  will  affect  an  indifference  that 
they  cannot  really  feel.  The  wise  will  follow  a 
different  course.  They  will  not  be  hurried  into 
judging  of  normal  man  on  the  basis  of  his  latest 
abnormalities,  and  they  will  not  permit  them- 
selves to  forget  all  that  human  history  teaches 
because  the  happenings  of  the  moment  seem 
to  teach  something  quite  different.  The  wise 
will  not  lose  their  sense  of  proportion  in  judg- 
ing of  events  in  time,  in  space,  or  in  circum- 
stance. 

Each  individual  whose  training  has  really 
reached  the  depths  of  his  nature  and  so  has 
formed  his  habits  of  thought  and  of  action, 
will  first  examine  his  own  relation  to  what  is 
going  on  in  the  world,  and  will  next  inquire 
how  that  which  is  going  on  is  to  be  judged  in 
terms  of  everlasting  standards  of  right  and  of 
wrong,  of  progress  and  of  decline.  He  will  first 
of  all  find  himself  to  be  a  member  of  a  politi- 
cally organized  group  which  is  a  nation.  He 
will  find  himself  beholden  to  that  group,  to  its 
traditions,  to  its  ideals,  and  to  its  highest  in- 
terests, not  as  a  parasite  but  as  a  strengthen- 
ing and  a  contributing  force.     Recognition  of 


A   WORLD  IN  FERMENT  247 

this  relationship  will  be  the  basis  of  his  loyalty, 
and  the  measure  of  his  loyalty  will  be  not  lip- 
service  but  sacrifice.  He  will  in  this  way  dis- 
cover that  the  ends  of  which  his  group  or  na- 
tion is  in  search  are  the  ends  that  he  must 
strive  to  accomplish.  It  will  not  be  difficult 
for  him  to  see  that  in  most  cases,  in  the  vast 
majority  of  cases,  these  ends  are  to  be  reached 
by  persuasion,  by  argument,  by  consent,  but 
that  in  the  last  resort  if  they  be  ends  on  which 
turns  the  whole  future  of  mankind  they  must, 
if  need  be,  find  protection  and  defense  in  physi- 
cal and  military  force.  This  is  a  sad  but  sig- 
nificant evidence  of  the  incomplete  develop- 
ment of  mankind. 

He  will  next  apply  the  standards  of  moral 
excellence  and  approval  to  the  present-day 
conduct  of  men  and  of  nations,  with  a  view  to 
determining  whether  the  changes  that  are  going 
forward  are  making  for  human  progress  or  for 
human  decline.  He  will  be  led  to  answer  this 
question  by  the  relative  importance  accorded 
to  ideas  and  ideals.  If  men  and  nations  are 
engaged  in  a  blind  struggle  for  material  gain, 
for  mere  conquest,  for  revenge,  or  for  future 
privileges,  then  what  is  going  on  is  in  high  de- 


248  A   WORLD  IN  FERMENT 

gree  a  manifestation  of  bestiality  in  man.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  struggle  be  one  for  the 
establishment  on  the  largest  possible  scale,  in 
the  securest  possible  way,  of  those  institutions 
and  opportunities  which  make  man  free,  then 
the  contest  rises  to  the  sublime.  In  this  latter 
case  every  contestant  on  behalf  of  such  a  cause 
is  a  hero,  and  every  one  who  offers  his  life  and 
his  strength  and  his  substance  is  a  sincere  lover 
of  his  kind. 

It  may  therefore  well  be  that  it  is  for  the 
issue  of  this  war  to  determine  whether  man- 
kind is  still  in  progress  or  has  begun  his  decline. 
If  the  moral,  the  economic,  and  the  physical 
power  of  men  and  of  nations  that  love  freedom 
is  adequate  to  its  establishment  on  a  secure 
basis,  then  mankind  is  still  in  progress  and  new 
vistas  of  satisfaction  and  of  accomphshment 
are  to  be  spread  out  before  him.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  strength  of  men  and  of  nations 
that  love  freedom  is  not  adequate  to  this 
severe  task,  then  man  has  crossed  the  Great 
Divide  of  his  political  history  and  is  to  begin 
a  descent  into  those  dark  places  where  force 
and  cruelty  and  despotism  wreak  their  v/ill. 
Nothing  less  than  this  is  the  alternative  which 


A   WORLD  IN  FERMENT  249 

now  confronts  not  alone  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  but  every  individual  in  each  one  of 
those  nations.  The  responsibility  for  action 
and  for  service  cannot  be  devolved  upon  some 
one  else,  least  of  all  can  it  be  devolved  upon 
government  officials  and  government  agencies. 
These  have  their  great  part  to  play,  but  in 
last  resort  the  issue  will  be  decided,  not  by 
governments,  not  even  by  armies  and  by  na- 
vies, but  by  men  and  women  who  are  the  sup- 
port of  all  these  and  whose  convictions  and 
stern  action  are  the  foundation  upon  which 
government  and   armies   and  navies  rest. 

Let  there  be  no  faltering  by  any  son  or 
daughter  of  Columbia.  The  clock  of  time  is 
about  to  strike  the  most  portentous  hour  in 
all  history.  May  each  child  of  this  ancient 
University  take  inspiration  and  courage  from 
Alma  Mater  herself,  who  in  her  long  life  has 
in  time  of  trouble  never  wavered,  in  time  of 
danger  never  hesitated,  in  time  of  difficulty 
never  doubted.  May  all  her  children  be  for- 
ever worthy  of  her! 


INDEX 


Adams,  John  Quincy,  190,  236 

Administration,  improvement  of 
public,  168 

Admiralty,  the,  182 

Africa,  gr,  141;  South,  99 

Alaska,  157 

Alexander  the  Great,  136 

American  development,  three  peri- 
ods in,  104;  international 
policy,  cUfficulties  of,  156,  240; 
isolation,  end  of,  92,  189;  Prot- 
estant College,  64;  republics. 
South,  61,  62,  63,  180;  Revolu- 
tion, 210 

Arbitral  Justice,  Court  of,  194 

Arbitration,  Court  of,  193 

Argentina,  62 

Armaments  and  peace,  18 

Asia,  91,  136,  141,  176 

Asquith,  Herbert  H.,  57 

Australia,  91 

Austria-Himgary,  17,  32,  54,140, 
197 

Balfour,  Arthur  James,  232 

Balkan  peninsula,  the,  222 

Baltimore,  91 

Beaconsfield,  Lord,  33 

Beirut,  64 

Belgiiun,  4,  147,  174,  177 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  70 

Berlin,  193 

Bismarck,  33,  38 

Bosporus,  64 

Brazil,  62 

British  Empire,  230;   Navy,  177, 

186 
Brussels,  198 
Bryce,  Viscount,  97 
Buenos  Aires,  15 
Bulgaria,  64 
Bvilow,  Prince  von,  193 

Csesar,  Julius,  222 
Calgacus,  8 
California,  140,  157 


Caribbean,  120 

Carson,  Sir  Edward,  182 

Case,     Newfoundland     Fisheries, 

195;  Pious  Fund,  194 
Caucasus,  55 
Central  Powers,  184 
Chamberlain,  Joseph,  99 
Charlemagne,  118,  136 
Chili,  62 
China,  60,  245 
Choate,  Joseph  H.,  96 
Civil  War,  103,  109 
Clay,  Henry,  190,  236 
Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  23 
College,  American  Protestant,  64; 

Columbia,    145,    232;     King's, 

145;  Robert,  64 
Colorado,  59,  157 
Columbia     College,     145,      232; 

University,  146,  149,  150,  223, 

224,  225,  229,  249 
Commission,  Tariff,  96;  Trade,  96 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations, 

235 
Commons,  House  of,  182 
Concord  Bridge,  145 
Concorde,  Place  de  la,  208 
Congress  of   the  United    States, 

35,  44,  146,  156,  157,  186 
Connecticut,  59 
Constantinople,  64 
Constitution  of  the  United  States, 

the,  109,  no,  122, 138, 159, 160, 

177,  188 
Court    of    Arbitration,    193;     of 

Arbitral   Justice,    194;    of    the 

United    States,    Supreme,    36, 

58,  195.  197 
Craonne,  222 
Cuba,  44,  59,  60,  62 
Ciuiliffe,  Lord,  232 

Declaration  of  Independence,  the, 

no,  138,  142,  178,  188 
Democracy     and     international 

peace,  52 


251 


252 


INDEX 


Detroit,  65 

Discipline  and  liberty,  212 

Disintegrating  forces  in  American 

life,  123 
Douglas,  Senator,  129 
Durable  peace,  the  road  to,  231 

Economic  group,  interests  of  an — 
versus  national  sovereignty,  161 

Economic  production,  the  human 
element  in,  162 

Eden,  222 

Empire,    British,    230;     Roman, 

90,  135,  175 

England,  41,  42,  70,  183,  19s.  212 
Europe,  14,  17,  19,  21,  22,  23,  28, 

30,  31,  32,  35>  36,  38,  39.  40,  41. 

42,  43,  45.  54.  57,  58,  65,  70,  90, 

91,  94,  95,  107,  108,  121,  124, 
135.  137,  138,  141,  154.  155. 
156,  165,  167,  176,  178,  187, 
188,  190,  194,  216,  236,  24s 

"Federalist,  The,"  iS9     . 
Federation  and   internationalism, 

30,  140 
Florida,  140,  157 
Ford,  Henry,  65 
Fort  Sumter,  145,  173 
France,  4,  6,  15,  22,  54,  121,  139, 

140,  177,  193,  197,  200,  212,  230 
Franco-Prussian  VVar,  the,  17,  34 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  190,  236 
Frederick  the  Great,  15 
French  Republic,   the,   156,   230; 

Revolution,  the,  133,  210 

Gambetta,  100 

Geneva  Arbitration,  34 

George  II,  15,  232 

German  Emperor,  the,  118,  193, 

194 
Germany,  17,  22,  32,  54,  139,  193 
Gettysburg,    177;    Address,   138, 

189 
Gogol,  217,  218 
Government  and  liberty,  78 
Great  Britain,  6,  54,  99,  121,  139, 

140,  193.  195.  197,  200,  230 
Guatemala,  134 
Gulflight,  so 


Hague  Conferences,  the,  192,  196, 
197.  237;  Conferences  and  the 
United  States,  the,  192;  Con- 
ventions, the,  4,  55 ;  the,  35, 
192,  194 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  109,  129, 
142,  145,  230,  236 

Harrison,  President,  15S 

Hay,  John,  39 

Holland,  121,  139 

HoUs,  Frederick  W.,  193,  194 

Home  and  nation,  80 

Honduras,  134 

House  of  Commons,  182 

Human  element  in  economic  pro- 
duction, the,  162 

Idaho,  157 

Independence,  the  Declaration  of, 

no,  138,  142,  178,  188 
Industrial  and  social  organization, 

effect  of  the  war  on,  153,  200; 

peace  and  international  peace. 

Industry,  better  organization  of, 

163 
Institution    building    and    time, 

211 
International  mind,  the,  43,  237; 

order,    proposals    for    an,    55; 

peace  and  industrial  peace,  65; 

poUcy,  diiBculties  of  American, 

156,  240 
Internationalism,     colloidal    and 

crystalUne,  7;    and  federation, 

30,  140 
Iran,  127 
Isolation,  the  end  of  American,  92, 

189 
Italy,  139,  140,  183,  185,  197 

Japan,  60,  180,  197,  245 

Jaures,  22 

Jay,  John,  145,  236 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  109,  129,  142, 

190,  236 
Joffre,  Marshal,  232 
Julius  Caesar,  222 

Kennan,  George,  207,  208,  215 
King's  College,  145 
Kossuth,  190 


INDEX 


253 


La  Fayette,  igo,  230 

La  Follette  Shipping  Bill,  157 

Laon,  222 

Learning,  the  Revival  of,  175 

Liberty  and  discipline,  212;  and 
government,  78 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  75,  76,103, 109, 
no,  114,  i2g,  142, 14s,  190,  223, 
229;  Second  Inaugural  Ad- 
dress of,  75,  76,  138 

Liverpool,  35 

Livingston,  Chancellor,  145,  190, 
236 

Louis  XV,  IS 

Louisiana,  157 

Lowell,  14,  149 

Lusitania,  50,  174 

McEanley,  President,  158 
Magnitude  of  the  war,  the,  90, 

i34>  175 
Maine,  140 
Manchuria,  60 
Marathon,  176 
Marshall,  John,  109,  122,  142 
Massachusetts  Bay,  121 
Masurian  Lakes,  the,  222 
Mayflower,  the,  138 
Mazzini,  189 
Mediterranean,  64,  65 
Meredith,  George,  117 
Mexico,  60,  61,  62,  194;  policy  of 

the  United  States  toward,  62 
Militarism,  21,  39 
Mississippi,  157 
Monroe  Doctrine,  the,  63,  95 
Montana,  157 
Muravieff,  Count,  217 

Nagasaki,  35 

Napoleon,  91,  136 

Nation  and  home,  80;  building, 
118;  defined,  40;  the  soul  of 
the,  180 

National  organization,  better,  96; 
preparation  for  national  ser- 
vice, 165;  sovereignty  versus 
the  interests  of  an  economic 
group,  i6i 

Neva,  216 


New  England,  31, 64;  Orleans,  91 ; 

York,  IS,  31,  3S,  91,  iQS.  230, 

232 
Newfoundland  Fisheries  Case,  195 
Niagara,  88 
North  Sea,  55 

Oregon,  157 

Organization,  better  national,  96; 
of  industry,  better,  163 

Palmerston,  33 

Panama  Canal  Tolls,  44 

Paris,  184 

Parliament,  35 

Patriotism  a  modem  growth,  69 

Peace,  8;  and  armaments,  18; 
and  democracy,  international, 
52;  road  to  a  durable,  231 

Pennsylvania,  31 

Pericles,  93 

Periods  in  American  develop- 
ment, three,  104 

Peru,  62 

Philippines,  the,  44 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  the,  138,  236 

Pinckney,  Charles  Cotesworth, 
236 

Pious  Fund  Case,  194 

Place  de  la  Concorde,  208 

Piatt  Amendment,  S9>  Senator 
O.  H.,  59 

Poland,  4 

Postal  Conventions,  the,  3s 

Preparation  for  national  service, 
national,  165 

Preparedness,  the  object  of,  109 

President  of  the  United  States, 
the,  15,  60,  76,  105,  146,  147, 
148,  169,  186,  194,  196,  223 

Proposals  for  an  international 
order,  5s 

Prussia,  is 

PubUc  administration,  improve- 
ment of,  168 

Puget  Sound,  91 

Railways  of  the  United  States, 

needs  of,  160 
Reichstag,  35 
Rhode  Island,  31 


254 


INDEX 


Roman  Empire,  go,  135,  175 

Rome,  40,  41 

Roosevelt,  President,  158,  194, 
196 

Root,  Elihu,  59,  195,  196 

Roumania,  4 

Rousseau,  influence  of  Jean  Jac- 
ques, 210 

Russia,  17,  54,  60,  140,  184,  197, 
212,  216,  218,  245;  responsi- 
bility of,  184 

Russian  revolution,  tiie,  210,  213 

Russo-Japanese  War,  60 

Secretary  of  State,  the,  60 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  the, 
'  105,  23s 
Serbia,  4,  54,  77 
Service,  national  preparation  for 

national,  165 
Soul  of  the  nation,  the,  180 
South   American    republics,    the, 

61,  62,  63,  180 
Spain,  180 
Spanish  War,  44,  59 
Sparta,  94 
State  Department,  the,  105;    the 

Secretary  of,  60 
Steel    Corporation,    the    United 

States,  6s 
Stubbs,  99 

Sumter,  Fort,   145,  173 
Supreme    Court    of    the    United 

States,  the,  36,  58,  195,  197 
Syria,  64 

Tacitus,  8 
Taft,  President,  158 
Talleyrand,  236 
Tariff  Commission,  96 
Teller,  Senator  Henry  M.,  59 
Texas,  157 

Thinking  internationally,  99,  iii 
Three    periods   of   American   de- 
velopment, 104 
Time  and  institution  building,  211 
Tolstoy,  213,  214 
Trade  Commission,  96 
Tsar,  the,  196,  211,  213 


United  States,  the  Congress  of  the, 
35.  44.  146,  _  156,  157,  186; 
the  Constitution  of  the,  log, 
no,  122,  138,  159,  160, 177,  188; 
of  Europe,  the,  27,  31,  32;  the 
Government  of  the,  3,  4,  58, 
157,  168,  235,  236,  240;  and 
the  Hague  Conferences,  the, 
192;  needs  of  the  railways  of 
the,  160;  the  people  of  the,  3,  4, 
27,  54,  61,  99,  100,  168,  169, 
190,  235,  239,  240;  policy  of 
the,  toward  Mexico,  62;  the 
President  of  the,  15,  60,  76,  105, 
146,  147,  148,  169,  186,  194, 
196,  223;  Secretary  of  State 
of  the,  60;  Senate  of  the,  105, 
23s;  Steel  Corporation,  65; 
Supreme  Court  of  the,  36,  58, 

195. 197 
Uruquay,  62 

Vimy  ridge,  222 
Virginia,  121 
Vistula,  208,  216 
Viviani,  M.  Ren6,  231 
Volga,  216 

Wall  Street,  gr 

Walpole,  Horace,  70 

War  a  true  world  war,  the,  147; 

effect  of  the,  on  industrial  and 

social   organization,    153,    200; 

the    Franco-Prussian,    17,    34; 

magnitude  of  the,  go,  134,  175; 

the    Russo-Japanese,    60;     the 

Spanish,  44,  59 
Washington,    D.    C,    169,    170; 

Farewell  Address  of,  75,  76  no; 

George,  98,  107,  129,  138,  142, 

187,  100;  State  of,  140,  157. 
Webster,  Daniel,  109,  122,  142 
White,  Andrew  D.,  193,  194 
Whitehall,  208 
World  power,  old  and  new,  49 

Yellow  Sea,  208 
Yokohama,  35 

Zemstvos,  214 


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